Niel Bierbaum
NATIONAL radio stations have continued to lose audiences at an alarming rate. The figures show that Afrikaans Stereo, SAfm, 5FM and Radio 2000 have all lost listenership over the past six months, continuing a downward trend that began two years ago.
Likewise, a number of the African language stations have also lost audience, most notably Radio Ndebele and Setswana Stereo. Radio Metro has levelled off following significant declines over the past two years. The losses on 5FM, and the gains made over the last two years by the regional stations in the Western Cape in particular, raise the question of whether it is still effective in that region.
This is revealed by the latest radio diary reports, which are based on research carried out by the South African Advertising Research Foundation (Saarf) during August and September.
Much of the national stations’ lost listenership appears to have moved to the regional stations, which have grown or at least maintained audiences compared with a year ago. However, nearly all of these are down from the listenership levels of March this year, most notably Highveld Stereo, whose “past seven days” listenership has dropped from a seven percent penetration of the white, coloured and Indian (WCI) audience in March 1995 to 5,5 percent.
Highveld Stereo station manager Eon de Vos believes that this is a “continuing trend; a consolidation of the format on the 30-40 age group with the older end dropping off.” Highveld is focusing on a smaller area and is no longer broadcasting to the west or east rand.
Radio 702 appears to have recovered from its slump earlier this year. At 5,2 percent penetration of the WCI audience, it shows a definite reversal of its downward trend of the year to March 1995. The talk station has also regained black listenership to the level it was in July 1994. Its audience is now equally split between black and white listeners, according to newly appointed MD Mike Wills.
The Amps diary research is a national exercise and so the figures for regional stations are not as robust as those of national stations, being subject to greater margins of error.
This is even more pronounced for the smaller community stations, of which 21 were covered by the research. According to the Saarf report, only 1,6 percent of the population claimed to have listened to a community station “in the past seven days” — six percent of whites and 4,5 percent of Indians. These stations accounted for 0,8 percent of the total listening time in a seven-day period. The principal stations were Radio Pretoria, Radio Koppies, Soweto Community Radio, Radio Maritzburg and Radio Vryheid. Therefore, even with a high variance, the lost listeners cannot be accounted for by community stations.
According to the Saarf report, the reformulated SAfm suffered significant losses among black listeners. It dropped from a one percent penetration into the black population to a 0,3 percent penetration. According to the report, these have either returned to the African language stations or Radio Metro. One-fifth of SAfm’s listeners simply stopped listening to the radio. Just over one quarter of the Afrikaans Stereo deserters switched off completely while the remainder went to the SABC regionals.
Good Hope FM has grown significantly over the last two years from 10,6 percent penetration of the WCI audience to 11,9 percent. Although this is down from the 13,4 percent high of March this year, it is still very high for a regional station — almost as high as 5FM is for the whole country. Of this “past seven day” listenership, 75 percent are coloured, which is the reason given by the SABC’s for its desire to hang on to this station. The argument that it is necessary for the SABC to service that audience is convincing. The fact that it is very attractive to advertisers, however, is the wolf under the fleece.
Radio Active marketing director Coen Gous and former 5FM programme manager Keith Lindsay were not available for comment.
These results shed light on the SABC’s desire to retain Good Hope and Radio Lotus, which it proposes on the grounds that both serve “clearly identifiable, culturally unique” audiences, which would not otherwise receive the same service from commercial
The truth is that the penetration of Radio Metro and 5FM in the Western Cape are both very low. There are also very few spare frequencies available in Cape Town around the mountain and if the SABC were to relinquish the set of frequencies used by Good Hope it would be very hard-pressed to regain a foothold in that area, particularly one that is commercially viable.