egtabite 412: RMC digital radio and podcasts score high during the World Cup

We kick off our 2023 radio egtabites with an initiative from a French radio company that made the most of the FIFA World Cup 2022 in Qatar by pulling in fans and listeners across platforms, scoring impressive results for their digital extensions.

RMC (French talk, news and sports radio) was the official radio broadcaster to air the FIFA World Cup in 2022. During the games, the radio station put together an exceptional programme for listeners, including a digital “event radio” devoted 100% to the World Cup, featuring dedicated podcasts, social media content, live commentaries of all the matches from Qatar, and more.

One of the main innovations for this edition of the World Cup broadcast was giving listeners the choice between following the regular RMC news broadcasts (from 4:30am to 3:00pm) or tuning in to the special digital event radio dedicated to 100% World Cup coverage. The special digital event station was available on the RMC app and website, throughout the entire duration of the games, 24 hours a day, from 18th November to 18th December.

Over the course of the month, listeners could tune in to more than 300 hours of World Cup programming – live broadcast of all 64 games, debates around the matches and exclusive shows, such as the “Morning du Mondial” or an evening show “After Foot” that gave listeners and supporters a voice to share their comments on the games.

Throughout the competition, RMC maintained a strong presence online and on social media, posting directly from Doha and supported by the entire RMC digital team in Paris. To be able to do all this, and produce high quality content for the fans, RMC brought together a dream team of 28 experts and commentators in Qatar (former World Cup champions, renowned trainers and consultants) and built a 40m2 studio in the heart of Doha.

The RMC Sport Twitch channel broadcast a live feed from the RMC studio, as well as a video feed to accompany the digital radio and all the programming from Doha.

On the RMC Sport website and app fans could find match results and a range of additional content, articles and videos, such as reactions from players and coaches, the atmosphere in the stadiums and other topics surrounding the competition.

The RMC Info Talk Sport app and website offered live coverage of all the matches and live broadcasts, news feed with all the latest information, results and alerts in real time and the "daily commentaries" from the dream team of commentators.

RMC Sport's social media featured live tweets from all matches, predictions, results, debriefs, highlights and reactions from players and guests on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. The digital team also created live reports and original digital content from Doha on TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat.

RNC produced native podcasts and turned some of the radio shows (for example “After Foot”) into podcasts as well to offer further information, debriefs and commentary regarding the matches.

In 2022, with an average of 22.1M listening sessions per month (+14% vs 2021), RMC was the first private radio in France in the ACPM ranking.

With this initiative, RMC achieved record numbers during the World Cup period (20th Nov – 18th Dec):

• 30M digital listening sessions (+36% vs average 2022)
• 1M listening sessions were generated on the digital radio dedicated to the World Cup
• 8M downloaded podcasts – average 2022 is 30M/month which represents a growth of 42% vs 2021
• 1M visits on RMC website and RMC Sport app
• 80K app downloads
• 100M video views on social media
• #1 French sport channel on Twitch (95K subscribers, 800K unique viewers), and 16.5K new follower

Given the success of this initiative, RMC will repeat it on the occasion of other major events such as the Rugby World Cup 2023.