Rai Radio

People listen to the radio anyway and everywhere, using any kind of technology and every kind of instrument: transistor, stereo, car-radio, mp3 player, smartphone, satellite and digital television, tablet and, naturally, the Internet.
A plentiful offering and it’s free, broadcast 24 hours a day and perfectly symbiotic with the Network and with its style.

The Digital Terrestrial Radio process is marked by progress and stoppages but it continues to be the strategic horizon for the future of the medium, a technological, industrial and economic regeneration that will also influence its roots in society.

RadioRai is called upon to fulfil its digital destiny in a dynamic, pluralist market, which offers extensive growth potential, also at commercial level. This explains the considerable development of innovative services aimed at generating new consumer flows, new listening profiles and new revenue opportunities. The final figures for 2011, which are summarised here, are more than encouraging.

Portals:

• RadioRai – the Radio’s portal touched a record of 160 million pages visited (885,693 single users);
• Radio1 recorded a monthly average of about 2 million pages visited (250 thousand single users);
• Radio2 easily exceeded 5 million pages visited (400 thousand single users);
• Radio3 settled at 4.5 million pages visited (250 thousand single users).

Podcasting. RadioRai’s podcasting keeps on growing, proving that the integration between radio on air and on line is a phenomenon that goes beyond the interests of an elite audience and involves everyone. Indeed the total touches 37 million file downloads (+70% on 2010).
The performance of the single channels reflects the different broadcasting profiles and types of offering:
• Radio1 touches 4 million downloads, concentrated in the features of current affairs and culture;
• Radio2 touches 19 million downloads with a bouquet of shows and entertainment enriched by numerous exclusive products for the web;
• Radio3 exceeds 14 million downloads, thanks to an offering of cultural current affairs and archive documents largely for the web only.

Streaming. Live listening via the Internet, despite being conditioned by the connection methods and limitations imposed by broadcasting rights, settled at an average of 350 thousand connections, concentrated mainly on events (sport and music) and entertainment programmes with a high level of interactivity.
Lower but significant figures characterise Isoradio, Gr Parlamento, Filodiffusione IV and V Canale.

Tutta la Radio in tasca (The Radio in your pocket). The smartphone and tablet application is growing strongly too, totalling 400 thousand users just one year after being launched. It is Rai’s most installed application.

Web Radio. The three on-line channels draw on the endless RadioRai audio deposits and enrich the offering with very characteristic product styles:
• WR6 The past present. Dedicated entirely to the rediscovery of the documents of the Digital Music Library in Via Asiago;
• WR7 Naples sings. Rare listening and performances for connoisseurs, selected from the endless repertory of the Historical Archive of Neapolitan music and song;
• WR8 The world of the web. It reverses the traditional relationship between broadcaster and listener, opening up to the taste and style of user generated content and to Raiproduced music (series of concerts Via Asiago Live).

Radio is very good at adapting to changing technology and consumption, but digital forerunners continue to prefer Radio on air. The effort to make Radio productions is a necessity which is far from obsolete.
It continues to be the main mission assigned to RadioRai.

Programming in 2011 accentuated broadcasting and communication synergies with big TV events, making the different broadcasting profiles more recognisable, reducing fragmentation and strengthening interactions with the web. The editions of the Giornale Radio were redesigned, with exclusive Channel formats, diversification of themes by target, elimination of overlaps or photocopy editions.

The measuring of listeners is still suspended, following the dissolution of Audiradio. The negative trend in advertising revenues can be attributed, at least partly, to the absence of an innovative, authoritative and shared market research project, which Rai has been promoting for some time.
The aim is to draw up a research project which is able to represent the physiognomy and value of Radio in the mature digital age.