06.11.2008

FICORA surveyed the programme content of radio stations subject to licence

To support its monitoring responsibilities, FICORA commissioned a follow-up survey on how commercial radio stations comply with licence terms. Due to the survey results, FICORA will instigate additional, company-specific clarifications at the end of the year.

According to the license terms set by the Government for commercial radio stations, radio programmes must contain a certain average share of verbal content on each weekday from 6 am to 6 pm. The share is counted during the time between Monday to Friday. National or equivalent radio stations face the highest verbal content requirement, 20 to 30 per cent. The share of verbal content determined in the licence terms of the local radio stations selected for the survey was 15 per cent of the entire programme.

According to the survey carried out now, Järviradio had the highest verbal content percentage, 35.9%. The verbal content of 31.8 per cent of Radio Nova, too, exceeded the licence terms. Metro FM had the least verbal content with only 6.1 per cent of its surveyed programme having been spoken. Also, Radio Vaasa's verbal content of 13.3 per cent was rather low.

The licence terms of local radio stations also include requirements for issues about the coverage area or editorial material serving the special groups in the coverage area, news broadcasts or other equivalent editorial content. Of the surveyed radio stations, Radio Mega from Oulu and Radio 88.2 from Salo followed the requirement for regionality best. Iskelmä Satakunta had the least local verbal content.

The samples of programme content of Iskelmä Savonlinna, Iskelmä Jyväskylä and Iskelmä Satakunta were for the most part identical.

FICORA commissioned the Journalism Research and Development Centre at the University of Tampere to carry out the survey in the spring of 2008. For the survey, a one-day programme of ten radio stations was recorded from 6 am to 6 pm. A similar survey was carried out for the first time in 2007, when the new licence terms had been in force for 6 months.

In the survey, radio programmes are classified so that the results are comparable with the obligations imposed in licence terms and the Act on Television and Radio Operations. FICORA supervises compliance with this Act and provisions issued under it.

The survey report in Finnish and its English abstract are available at: www.ficora.fi

Further information
on the survey: Tiina Aaltonen, Development Manager, tel. +358 9 6966 430, +358 40 777 4082
supervision of radio stations (available from 7 Nov.): Merja Saari, Deputy Drector, tel. +358 9 6966 468, tel. +358 50 386 1771