Research bureau Intomart GfK yesterday released the Dutch radio listening figures for Nov/Dec 2008, based on the listening diaries of 9,500 respondents aged 10 years and older. Public network Radio 2 climbed into a commanding lead thanks to its annual broadcast of the Top 2000 in December. It performed much better than in 2007, when it still only managed second place to Radio 538. This time, Radio 2 increased its market share by a massive 2.7 percent, seemingly at the expense of Radio 538, which fell 1.2 percent, and the regional public broadcasters which collectively fell 0.6 percent. Sky Radio, on the other hand, had a good month and saw its share rise by 0.8 percent, the biggest rise for some time.
However, because of the seasonal programme variations in December, it’s not possible to detect any long-term trends in these figures. Of more concern will be the losses suffered by stations with traditionally loyal audiences - Arrow Classic Rock seems to have made no real progress since moving to FM, and is back to a market share of 2.5 which it could already achieve on mediumwave. Its sister station Arrow Jazz FM even lost some listeners.
On the other hand, Radio 10 Gold held on to its 2.8 share which makes it the most successful Dutch station without the benefit of terrestrial distribution. Its Programme Manager, Roland Snoeijer, is moving on 1 March to the same function at 100%NL, and will be replaced by Jean Kiekebosch. 100%NL is looking to push on from its success in 2008.
The percentage market shares of the stations (Oct/Nov 2008 in brackets) were as follows:
- Radio 2* 12.4 (9.7)
- Radio 538 10.0 (11.2)
- Sky Radio 9.7 (8.9)
- Radio 3FM* 8.0 (unchanged)
- Q-music 6.8 (6.7)
- Radio 1* 6.5 (6.9)
- Radio Veronica 5.7 (6.1)
- Radio 5* 2.8 (unchanged)
- Radio 10 Gold 2.8 (unchanged)
- 100%NL 2.7 (2.6)
- Arrow Classic Rock 2.5 (2.8)
- Classic FM 2.3 (unchanged)
- Radio 4* 1.9 (unchanged)
- Slam!FM 1.7 (2.0)
- Arrow Jazz FM 0.7 (0.8)
- BNR Nieuwsradio 0.7 (0.8)
- Caz! 0.4 (0.5)
- TMF Radio 0.4 (0.5)
- Kink FM 0.2 (unchanged)
- Radio 6* 0.2 (unchanged)
* Public network. Others commercial.
Regional public stations (cumulative) 12.6 (13.2)
Regional commercial stations 3.4 (3.7)
Other stations 5.6 (unchanged)
on Jan 31st, 2009 at 23:11
Perhaps we’ll see 100%NL pick up listeners from Noordzee Nationaal which closed on Jan 1. They certainly picked up one - me!
The station seems oddly named as 100%NL since they play a couple of UK/US standards every hour, but these fit well into the station’s Dutch music format. Will be interesting to see where Roland Snoeijer takes the station.
on Feb 4th, 2009 at 00:22
Rob, the name has always seemed odd to me,as in their bid for the franchise, they said they would play 70% Dutch language music, so why not 70%NL ? Maybe it just doesn’t sound right.
They are doing well, though, and I suspect better than they expected.
on Feb 6th, 2009 at 16:47
I would love to have Dutch Folksongs in your radio program