A recent comment by an ex-Primedia (KFM) employee under our article “South Africa’s Fundamentally Flawed FM Listenership” adds further fuel to the fire, with regards to the alleged exhorbitant prices charged by mainstream FM radio stations in South Africa. Prices based on allegedly dubious listenership calculation methods.

Amod Munga, ex-Promotions Co-ordinator at Primedia Broadcasting had this to say:

In 2008, I had a conversation with the programming manager of a well-known radio station in the Western Cape, who confidently asserted that “Digital radio is dead. It’s not a threat.” And yes, he’s still employed in that position. That same company is now trying to figure out how to get themselves into the digital broadcasting sphere.

The radio diary fiction is something I’m surprised is just accepted as gospel. The truth behind that research is that each person contacted is polled for their top 3 stations. Essentially, this means that the same listener that Radio Station A claims, is also the same listener that Radio Station B and C can claim. In my experience, the only people who don’t know this are the businesses paying the media buyers and radio stations the obscene amounts of money for 30 seconds of airtime that is usually ignored.The only things that enjoy any kind of recall are the promotions, the big money competitions that usually have station branding splashed all over them.

How is digital radio different? Quantitatively, the listener numbers are real and the reach is potentially wider. Qualitatively, the experience can be a thousand times richer through interaction with the audience, because digital radio lives in a space where all forms of digital communication are integrated in the experience. This makes digital radio more nimble and able to actually capitalise on the real-time aspect of the medium.

Traditional radio is losing ground in more developed countries and its quickly turning into an adapt or die scenario. In South Africa, big radio can still exploit the economic situation a while longer but in doing so, will not evolve at all as a medium. Of course, that won’t stop the media owners from bleeding it dry before bailing…

[more here]

Our recent survey of over 1,000 people revealed that the majority of people in this high-LSM target audience do NOT have FM radios at their office. Instead they tune in online.

Contact dean@2oceansvibemedia.com for more.