The Dutch radio listening figures for July/August 2006 were released this morning by research bureau Intomart GfK. It was a good month for the public broadcasters, with Radio 2 increasing its market share by 0.6%, and the regional stations increasing their cumulative share by the same amount. Radio 538 remains the market leader, but its share has dropped, and is now only 0.6% above Radio 2 compared to 1.8% a month ago. Q-music continues to build its market share steadily, while Sky Radio has fallen back a bit. But the Sky Radio group has bought the rights to the cable frequencies of RTL FM which is about to close, having lost a third of its listeners as a result of losing its terrestrial FM frequencies to 100%NL. Exactly what Sky Radio intends to do with them isn’t clear. 100%NL doesn’t yet figure in the ratings, although it soft-launched in mid-July. It will appear in the ratings for the first time when the September/October figures are published in November.
The market shares in percentage (June/July in brackets) were as follows:
- Radio 538 11.3 (11.9)
- Radio 2* 10.7 (10.1)
- Sky Radio 9.5 (9.9)
- Radio 1* 7.8 (unchanged)
- Radio 3FM* 7.6 (7.9)
- Q-music 6.3 (6.1)
- Radio 10 Gold 5.1 (4.9)
- Radio Veronica 5.0 (4.9)
- Caz! 1.8 (1.6)
- Radio 4* 1.8 (1.7)
- RTL FM 1.7 (2.5)
- Classic FM 1.6 (unchanged)
- Arrow Classic Rock 1.5 (unchanged)
- Slam!FM 1.4 (1.5)
- Radio 747* 1.0 (0.9)
- Arrow Jazz FM 0.6 (unchanged)
- BNR Nieuwsradio 0.4 (unchanged)
- Kink FM 0.4 (unchanged)
- Regional public stations (cumulative) 15.4 (14.8)
- Regional commercial stations (cumulative) 2.3 (2.6)
- Other stations (cumulative) 6.8 (6.4)
on Sep 28th, 2006 at 16:10
I have to say I will miss listening to RTL FM in the evenings. They play some great music at night.
on Sep 28th, 2006 at 17:11
Yes, but unforunately it wasn’t the type of music they were supposed to be playing according to their licence
on Oct 1st, 2006 at 08:48
I thought RTL FM closed last night as the station went silent at 00.18 CET. There were problems with the automation last night meaning that the station was 15 minutes behind schedule. The last song played was From This Moment by Shania Twain. Within 5 minutes of the station going silent the webstream was taken down. However on the RTL FM website this morning, I was surprised to find no announcement that the station had closed and a webstream via the website still playing music with the call signs RTL FM but now advertising Sky Radio at regular intervals.
on Oct 1st, 2006 at 17:18
Some interesting developments today. RTL FM now has a new streaming provider, the bitrate has been reduced to 96 KB/s and from what I’ve heard today the playlist appears to have been changed with less Dutch language music and a Soft AC format similar to the original Sky Radio. Although the idents between the songs are still saying RTL FM, there is no mention of RTL FM on the news ident which makes me wonder if the Sky Radio Group has bought RTL FM not just the rights to its cable frequencies and are in the process of rebranding it as a complimentary service to Sky Radio on cable and perhaps later on DAB.