Germany: Radio stations are running out of young listeners

I-pods and podcasts are more popular with young listeners than radio. Representatives of the radio industry in Germany complain that the drop in ratings in recent years has been "really severe". And the figures prove them right. The youth station Eins live, for example, lost 5.8 percent of listeners compared to the previous year alone. Overall, the reach of radio among listeners under 30 has fallen by 10 percent in the last five years, confirms Monika Piel, Radio Director of Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). This development is particularly bitter for private radio stations that live from advertising revenue. The interest of advertisers is shrinking along with the declining listenership.
For the former head of Universal Germany and current operator of the music station Motor FM, Tim Renner, the solution is: "Play music again that people don't know yet, because the iPod can't do that." The success of podcasts shows that he is not wrong. This technology, which is around two years old, allows listeners to put together their own radio program. The podcatcher software independently collects radio programs from the Internet and downloads them to the computer. From there, they can be transferred to the I-Pod or other digital playback devices. Relatively cumbersome, one might think - but according to German radio representatives, podcasts are also increasingly causing problems for stations.
The choice of podcasts is now huge. Music programs and spoken word contributions are provided by amateurs and professionals alike. German Chancellor Angela Merkel, for example, has achieved involuntary cult status with a podcast that turned out to be quite stiff.
The figures make it clear that radio stations need to become more flexible. Renner's Motor FM, for example, which can only be received in the Berlin and Stuttgart area, has around 50,000 listeners in the traditional way, compared to 28,000 podcast subscribers. Although radio is considered an outdated medium, it is still in demand thanks to new technologies. And it's not necessarily just music that is of interest: WDR's most popular podcast, for example, is the history program "Zeitzeichen".