Radio is still interesting
RadioMedia ry’s annual RadioGala will be held at the Helsinki Messukeskus this Friday. The event will honour the best creators and achievements of the commercial radio industry in 2023 and announce the winners of the public vote for Radio Host and Radio Programme of the Year.
There’s reason to celebrate, because Finnish radio is doing well. According to the National Radio Survey, radio reaches 4.3 million listeners every week, or up to 86% of Finns. In 2023, radio was listened to for around 2 hours 16 minutes a day, and the most listened to radio was by people aged 55 and over, for 3 hours 42 minutes a day.
Listening to public service and commercial channels was fairly evenly distributed among the population. Radio Suomi was the most listened to channel, accounting for 34% of all listening. The other most popular channels were Radio Nova, Yle Radio 1, Suomipop and Radio Rock.
In terms of age groups, the under 55s listened more to commercial radio (71%) and the over 55s to Yle channels (63%). In the important target group for commercial radio, i.e. 25-54 year olds, Bauer Media and Sanoma Media were the most popular content providers. Their most listened programmes were Radio Nova’s aamu and Radio Suomipop’s Aamulypsy.
Despite the proliferation of speech content, music remains one of the most important features of radio. It profiles the channels and guides listeners’ channel choices.
Radio is also important for music creators themselves, as a promotional channel and a source of royalty income. According to the 2020 Rajar Midas survey, 76% of people still consider radio to be an important tool for discovering new music.
But getting on the playlists of the radio stations is not easy: for example, YleX added only 56 new artists to its playlist in 2023. On the other hand, YleX played around 7400 different songs during the year, and 47.6% of all music played on the channel was national.
The RadioGaala can be watched live via ISTV streaming from 12 April at 17:00. In addition to the awards ceremony, the stage will also feature Jenni Vartiainen, Etta, Benjamin, Antti Ketonen and Hugo.
