Around 87 percent of the Swiss still listen to the radio every day
Radio usage fell slightly in the second half of 2016. However, 86.7% of people in German-speaking Switzerland still listen to the radio every day for almost two hours. The market continues to be dominated by the SRG, but private stations were able to make gains.
The SRG's market share in German-speaking Switzerland fell by around 1.53 percentage points to 63.7% compared to the first half of the year, as Mediapulse reported on Friday. Private radio stations benefited almost exclusively from this. Their market share rose by 1.55 percentage points to 31.43%. The remainder was accounted for by foreign radio stations, whose share remained constant at around 5%. Overall, radio usage in Switzerland fell by around one percent. In the second semester of last year, around 4.24 million people tuned in to the radio every day, which is 50,000 fewer people per day than in the previous semester. A total of 2.965 million people listened to SRG stations every day, 2.585 million to private stations and 1.268 million to foreign stations.
SRF 1 with 30 percent market share
SRF 1 remained the most popular radio station in German-speaking Switzerland with a market share of around 30% or 1.5 million listeners per day, followed by SRF 3 with a market share of 16.36% or 1.2 million listeners. This is followed by other SRG stations such as SRF Musikwelle (6.73%), SRF Kultur (3.38%) and Radio Swiss Pop (2.69%) before the first private station, Radio Energy Zürich, appears in the ranking - with a market share of 2.68% or around 282,000 listeners per day.
Ticino residents are the most avid radio listeners
Only just behind are the second Zurich station Radio 24 with 254,000 listeners and a market share of 2.47% and the eastern Swiss station FM1 with 224,000 listeners (2.32% market share). In Central Switzerland, Radio Pilatus remains the most popular private station with around 220,000 listeners. In a Swiss comparison, the people of Ticino listened to the radio more and for longer than the German-speaking Swiss: 88.7 percent tuned in to the radio for 118 minutes a day. The French-speaking Swiss, on the other hand, are slightly less fond of the radio: only 82.7% listened to it for 99 minutes a day.
Swiss radio currency to be modernized for 2018
Twice a year, Mediapulse publishes the official usage figures for Swiss live radio consumption via cable, FM, DAB+ and web radio among the Swiss population aged 15 and over. The daily data from the Mediapulse Radiopanel is regarded as the official Swiss radio currency and is used by radio stations to optimize their programming and by the advertising industry to sell advertising spots to specific target groups. Since 2013, the measurement has also included the distribution of radio programs via the internet (web streams). In addition, since 2014 (2nd half of 2014), the synchronous broadcasting of identical audio signals via several radio stations has also been checked for plausibility and correctly allocated to the individual stations.
From 2018, the existing Swiss radio currency will be modernized. A meter (Mediawatch) will continue to be used, which acoustically records the wearer's radio consumption. In addition to the Mediawatch 4, which has been optimized in terms of design and technology, the introduction of a measurement app is also being tested. The new research technology, which leads to improved data stability and faster data availability, will be tested from July 1, 2017 as part of a parallel operation to the existing measurement. The definitive changeover will take place on January 1, 2018 (SDA/pd/hae).
