Finland
A balance between public and private radio broadcasters
Radio broadcasting in Finland began in the 1920’s, with relatively unsuccessful advertising-funded experiments trialled by private organisations. However, it was the establishment of the national public service broadcaster Yleisradio (YLE) in 1926 that brought about national radio broadcasting.
YLE, which has carried no advertising since its inception and is funded largely by the television (licence) fee, maintained a complete monopoly until 1985, at which point the first local radio licences were granted, and a monopoly on national radio broadcasts until 1995, when national radio networks were permitted. During the early 1960s, the broadcaster faced competition from commercial pirate stations broadcasting from ships on the Baltic Sea.
The rise of commercial broadcasters following the difficult economic conditions and media market turmoil of the 1990’s has lead to approximate parity today between radio reach and listening times for public and private stations. YLE’s audience has declined in the face of competition despite a highly effective re-profiling of its stations in 1990 and a somewhat less successful “strategic update” reform in 2003. The public broadcaster’s eleven stations (as of July 2010) include pop and youth channel YLEX (formerly Radiomafia), the culture, current affairs and music station YLE Radio 1, the news, sport and music station YLE Radio Suomi (Finland’s most popular radio with about 38% share), and stations serving Swedish and Sámi language communities.
The first national commercial station was Radio Nova, which started broadcasting in 1997 and maintains the highest audience share among private stations at 12.6%. Radio Nova, the country’s only nationwide commercial channel, was acquired by Nordic Broadcasting Company (Bonnier/Proventus of Sweden) in 2005, and today many of Finland’s leading private radio stations fall under foreign ownership. An important Finish player on the market is Nelonen Media, part of Sanoma Entertainment, with semi-national rock station Radio Rock holding 4.9% of the audience and the more female-oriented music station Radio Aalto 1.6% of the audience. French-owned NRJ has 3.5%, whilst Metroradio (owned by Ireland’s Communicorp) operates jazz network Groove FM with 1.2%, the almost-nationwide Finish music network SuomiPOP with 5.3% and classical music network Classic Radio. SBS, part of the German ProSiebenSat.1 Media conglomerate, is the largest operator in Finnish local radio and operates (as Pro Radio Oy) 10 stations, including semi-national stations The Voice with 3.1% and local Finnish music network Iskelmä with 7.2% audience share.
Digital radio slow to take off; Internet streaming booming
Although a number of private radio broadcasters applied for DAB licences in the late 1990s, none were granted, and the operators lost interest in the technology with its very small audience numbers. With few DAB sets sold in the country, YLE shut down DAB transmission in 2005, and digital radio is now only broadcast via the digital television (DVB-T) and mobile TV (DVB-H) networks. However, reach for the former stood at only 6% in late 2009 and by this point all commercial operators except SBS had withdrawn from mobile TV transmissions (Ala-Fossi, 2009).
Internet streaming, having been initially hampered by disagreements over copyright issues, is now an increasingly important delivery method for radio, with over 100 live web radios now in operation – simulcast Internet radio has a weekly reach of 9% in the country, and 38% of Finns have either listened to live streaming or podcasts online.
Listening stable, radio adspend robust during the financial crisis
Average listening minutes have remained stable for a long period of time, currently standing at 3 hours 15 minutes, and although young people are increasing their time spent online, listening in younger audiences is also rather stable. Daily listening times for the public and private sectors have been very similar for the last few years; however, YLE has averaged 98.5 minutes per day from January 2009 to July 2010 (9+, Finnpanel data July 2010) and commercial stations averaged 91 minutes per day over the same period. The share of listening in younger audiences is much larger for commercial stations.
Commercial radio first overtook the public broadcaster in weekly audience reach in 2001, and it has maintained this position with an average of about 76% over the past seven years. YLE has averaged roughly 65% weekly reach over this period, and radio overall has maintained a weekly reach of about 96%.
Measurement, carried out by Finnpanel Oy, is by diary, taking 9+ as the reference population. Discussions regarding PPM have been initiated; however decisions have yet to be taken, with costs and regional measurements among the issues to be resolved.
2008 was a peak year for Finnish commercial radio advertising revenues, with investments of about €50.5 million that year. Adspend Euros have moved from local radio markets to nationwide markets controlled by the major players over recent years, and 70% of investment was in national radio in 2008. The main commercial players in the market, Sanoma Entertainment, MTV Media, SBS, NRJ and Communicorp Group currently account for nearly 80% of all radio advertising.
Radio’s share of media investments is quite low, at around 4%, with the most significant spend coming from the automotive, travel and trade industries. Leading radio advertisers by spend in 2008 included TeliaSonera, Neste Oil, ABC petrol/service stations, Eniro Finland, OP-Pohjola (bank and insurance) and Tallink Silja.
In 2009 (January-September), radio adspend fell by -5.5%, however with the average loss for all media reaching nearly -20%, radio was the medium least affected by the crisis. A key challenge for commercial radio is now to deal with the after-effects of the recession; restoring advertising prices following price dumping by many of the main media players remains difficult in a market that has adapted to lower prices.
For more information:
RadioMedia, the main marketing body for radio, funded by the Finnish commercial radio industry
http://www.radiomedia.fi/
Finnish radio in a nutshell by Marko Ala-Fossi (September 2009)
http://www.uta.fi/viesverk/fmcs/radio.html
Finnpanel Oy, the Finnish audience measurement body
http://www.finnpanel.fi/en/
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