The French are connected by the waves. Always present in the daily lives of many French people, radio continues to come out on top of the most credible media, according to the 2023 edition of the media barometer of The cross. But to appreciate it, you still have to listen to it: the audiences continue to decline. The number of listeners stood at 40.84 million in 2021 and fell to 39.35 million at the end of 2022, thus showing a drop of 1.5 million in one year.
On the occasion of the publication of the hearings, last month, and of the day of the radio, this Monday, 20 minutes asked its readers about their (dis)love for the position. And, to hear them, the TSF still has a bright future ahead of it. Radio broadcasts still punctuate the daily lives of many people. Roby, for example, cannot do without France Inter: he starts “in the morning, from 5:30 am”. “Every time I am in a room where there is a radio, all day, I am connected to this station, so multiple by these programs its journalists and animators, its humor”, he continues.
Madeleine de Proust FM
“I live alone and the radio is almost always on at home: it creates a presence,” says Christiane. Radio programs are generally more interesting and varied than television programs, and I always find something that interests me. Moreover, I can do other things by listening to the radio while TV makes me more passive. Radio is often contrasted with its little sister, television. “I no longer want to watch the news on TV which is much more anxiety-provoking,” says Lilou, who prefers “the atmosphere is both serious and relaxed in the morning”.
The hours spent in front of the post also summons childhood memories in our readers. “My father was a worker, my mother a “housewife”, in a rural area, we were already listening to France Inter at the time, and this has been going on for sixty-three years, remembers Roby. I do not get enough. (…) Coming home from school, with my mother who was sewing or ironing, we listened religiously to Jacques Chancel and his “Radioscopies” and, like a Proust madeleine, every time I see a sewing machine I think about it. Olivia, 34, also describes herself as a child of the radio. “From the age of 5 I had a radio in my room, I listened to it all day until bedtime and all the radios”, she explains.
Frying on the line
Because if Olivia speaks in the past tense, it’s because her opinion on the radio has changed a bit. “Now I’m running away from it, because every time I listen to it, I spend too much time looking for a station on the FM band that can be eaten,” she continues. The radio no longer offers real musical discoveries, free radios have become boring. And above all, too many advertisements! Add hosts deemed annoying or shows no longer as interesting as before, and you have the set of grievances shared by many readers.
For music, the radio is replaced by other means of listening, from the good old car CDs to streaming services. “Today I subscribe to a streaming service and it’s much nicer: no ads, I listen to all kinds of music at any time of the day and I have access to podcasts, explains Laetitia. It comes at a cost, but it’s the price you pay for quality entertainment. So, all that remains is for radio to reinvent itself. At least not to disappear. “The disappearance of the fee, however, makes me fear a rather dark horizon” for public radio stations, worries Roby.