Radio evolution - ICS - Universidade do Minho

Oliveira, M.; Portela, P. & Santos, L.A. (eds.) (2012)Radio Evolution: Conference ProceedingsSeptember, 14-16, 2011, Braga, University of Minho: Communication and Society Research CentreISBN 978-989-97244-9-5Synergies between broadcast music radio and onlineradio: how to appeal the youth audience. TheSpanish and Catalan caseMARIA GUTIÉRREZ; XAVI RIBES; JOSEP MARIA MARTÍ; BELÉN MONCLÚS & LUISA MARTÍNEZUniversitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) 1maria.gutierrez@uab.cat / xavi.ribes@ uab.cat / josepmaria.marti@uab.cat / belen.monclus@gmail.com /luisa.martinez@uab.catAbstract:The need to establish synergies between the broadcast and the online radio for the purpose ofgetting the youth audience back, is one of the EBU recommendations which has been madeextensible to European public radio stations over the past years (EBU, 2008), as one of the mostindispensable measures to get over the crisis consumption of radio amongst the youngestlistenership, which is inevitably affecting the markets, and most concretely, those saturated like theSpanish or the Catalan one ,(Gutiérrez, Martí, Ribes, Monclús, Martínez, 2010). This paper is theoutcome of the first results of Radio 2.0 and the Youth. The chances of online radio as a catalyst foryouth audience radio in the conventional broadcast; a research conducted by l’Observatori de laRàdio a Catalunya (GRISS-UAB). This research embraces, among many others, the area of theprogramming strategies and the synergies between the analogical broadcasting and the thememusic websites, whose target is the youth population aged between 14 and 24 years old, which isthe group who has suffered the severest audience decline and who traditionally have been thebridge to step into the general radio. Our work aims to seek answers for questions such as theadaptation policies focused on broadcasting and distribution patterns, the continuity between theschedule radio schedule and cyber radio, as well as the managing of participation and interactivity,among many others.Keywords: music radio, youth audience, synergies, radio onlineIntroductionThe object of our study is the most representative theme music channels of radio stations within theCatalan ecosystem, where the intervention of Spanish and Catalan on air broadcasting is to be found (40Principales, Europa FM, Flaix FM, Màxima, Ràdio Flaixbac, RAC 105, Cadena Dial), in this paper. We focused in fourstations: 40Principales, Flaix FM, Ràdio Flaixbac and RAC 105. Selection criteria of stations applied here are as theyfollow: on one hand, those stations appearing on the top five in the audience ranking position 2 and the other, toreach significant levels among the population group aged between 14 to 24 years old (Huertas, 2010). As far asmusic formats are concerned, there are some differences since 40 Principales is the outcome of combining Hits list1 Observatori de la Ràdio a Catalunya, GRISS2 In the audience ratings data collected July 1rst 2011, in Catalonia, 40 Principales reached to 448.000 listeners, followed by Flaix FM with 367.000listeners, Cadena Dial with 252.000 listeners, RAC105 with 242.000 listeners and Flaixbac with 217.000 listeners.ECREA: Radio Evolution: technology, contents, audiences | 63