The document summarizes the radio market in Vilnius, Lithuania. It finds that the market is dominated by three stations - the state radio channel LR1 and two commercial pop music stations, M-1 and Radiocentras. The ratings data is limited as it only provides reach figures and not time spent listening. When examining the Vilnius market specifically, two additional stations, M-1 Plus and Znad Wilii, perform respectably. The programming of the stations is analyzed, finding that Ultravires and Radiocentras play the most dance music, appealing to younger audiences, while LR1 and LR2 skew older. Znad Wilii, broadcasting in Polish, attracts non-Lithuanian listeners

1. THE VILNIUS, LITHUANIA RADIO
MARKET
by
GRANT GODDARD
www.grantgoddard.co.uk
October 1997

2. MARKET OVERVIEW
Vilnius has six radio stations that play popular music of some kind [see Table
1]. Some of these stations have national coverage, some have regional
coverage, and one is only audible in Vilnius. In order to make fair comparisons
between the stations’ performances, I have examined the Vilnius market alone,
since all stations are available in the capital.
The ratings data obtained from Baltic Media Facts [BMF] is sketchy and slightly
misleading. BMF’s regular ratings report details the Lithuania market as a
whole, with only one page of data that refers specifically to Vilnius. Although
BMF’s research is diary-based, no information is readily available concerning
the amount of time respondents spend listening to each station. This is a
serious drawback, since all of BMF’s published data refers only to the
reach/cume of each station, with no information about how long any one
station is listened to. There are graphs in BMF’s published report that refer to
“average weekly radio audience share” but, although they use the word
“share”, they do not in fact refer to “share of radio listening”. In reality, these
tables are merely the simple reach/cume figures reworked to add up to 100 per
cent.
The lack of any available figures for “time spent listening” inhibits the amount
of useful information that can be drawn from the BMF data. It is possible to see
how many people each radio station “reaches”, but impossible to tell whether
they listen to that station for three minutes or for three hours per week. The
success of a radio station’s programming is determined by the length of time
the average listener stays tuned, as well as by the total listening audience. And
a station’s revenue from advertising will be more closely related to “share” than
to “reach”.
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 2

3. RATINGS
The bare ratings data, as published in BMF’s ratings book, is detailed in Table
2. Three stations with truly national coverage dominate the ratings across the
whole of Lithuania - state radio channel one in first place, followed by two
commercial, pop music stations: M-1 and Radiocentras. The remaining
regional and local stations are left a long way behind these three.
TABLE 1: VILNIUS RADIO STATIONS
frequency
station
AM
612
1107
LR1 [state]
LR2 [state]
FM
98.3
99.3
99.7
100.1
101.5
102.6
103.1
103.8
104.7
105.1
105.6
106.2
106.8
Radio France Int.
?
[Radiola]
BBC World Service
Radiocentras
LR1 [state]
Ultravires
Znad Wilii
Laisvoji Banga
LR2 [state]
VOA
M-1 Plus
M-1
language
format
French
[tests]
[tone]
English
Polish
pop
talk
pop
pop
pop
talk/culture
English
pop/oldies
pop/90s
The picture in Vilnius is slightly different. In addition to the three stations
already mentioned, there are two further stations that also have respectable
ratings - M-1 Plus and Znad Wilii - neither of which has full national coverage.
The greater competition in the Vilnius radio market dents somewhat the
performance of state radio channel one, compared to the national picture, and
the commercial stations take a greater slice of the radio market in the capital.
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 3

4. TABLE 2: CUME: NATIONAL & VILNIUS
weekly
audience
reach
Lithuania
000’s
weekly
audience
share
Lithuania
%
weekly
audience
share
Vilnius
%
LR1 [state]
M-1
Radiocentras
M-1 Plus
Pukas [Kaunas]
Znad Wilii
only
Ultra Vires
LR2 [state]
Laisvoji Banga
Laluna [Klaipeda]
Tau [Kaunas]
Kauno Fonas [Kaunas]
1341
1009
600
387
224
215
28.3
21.3
12.7
8.2
4.7
4.6
21.1
20.5
14.6
12.8
----15.4
176
163
107
96
48
41
3.8
3.5
2.3
2.0
1.0
0.8
3.7
2.8
3.5
-------------
other stations
159
6.8
5.7
regional
Vilnius
regional
regional
source: Baltijos Tyrimai, 16Jul-12Aug 1997
Lithuania population (12-74) = 2,889,000
Vilnius population (12-74) = 470,000
The figures referred to in Table 4 onwards are derived from the more detailed
data about the Vilnius radio market that I obtained from my visit to BMF. The
data is derived from a longer, three-month survey period, which should
increase the accuracy of the statistics.
In Table 3, there is an additional breakdown into Lithuanian nationals and nonLithuanians (mainly Polish). The most noticeable difference is that the one
Polish-language station in Vilnius, Znad Wilii, comes out on top with the nonLithuanians. No surprise there! Other than that, the remaining, Lithuanianlanguage stations are listened to in much the same order of popularity as in
the overall market. The ratio of Lithuanian to non-Lithuanian listeners to each
of the Lithuanian-language stations is relatively consistent.
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 4

5. STATIONS’ PROGRAMMING
Monitoring each station’s weekday, daytime output showed that their music
policies have the following characteristics:
TABLE 3: RADIO STATION MUSIC POLICIES
Ultravires
% Lithuanian songs
% Polish songs
Radiocentras
Znad Wilii M-1 M-1 Plus
7
-
28
-
20
-
-
% pop/dance
% pop/rock
53
21
48
29
31
28
34
34
23
% 1990s songs
% 1980s songs
% 1970s songs
% 1960s songs
96
2
2
-
95
5
-
91
9
-
100
-
16
53
28
2
-
-
-
-
33
% Top 10 hits
There is one station missing from this table, Laisvoji Banga, because it failed
to exhibit any signs of having a definable music policy. The morning show had
a lot of talk and call-ins, leaving room for only about 7 songs per hour. Then at
11am there was an hour of cajun and country music. In the afternoon there
was a show of heavy metal rock music, seemingly played from poor quality
cassettes. The ONLY thing I can say categorically about the station is that I
never heard any dance music. Otherwise, it played a mix of pop music and
pop/rock music from the 60s to the 90s, some hits, some obscure songs,
including everything from Louis Armstrong to kd lang. And it insisted on playing
the same George Michael song once an hour EVERY hour during the day. It is
no surprise that Laisvoji Banga is at the bottom of the ratings in Vilnius!
Of the remaining stations, Ultravires plays the most pop/dance music (53% of
songs), almost wholly from the 1990s. It is a music-intensive station, with some
short news bulletins in morning and afternoon drive, but no news at all during
the middle of the day. There is a fair proportion of pop/rock songs (21%) mixed
in with the dance music, along with a few Lithuanian songs (7%).
Radiocentras is the only commercial station playing a lot of Lithuanian music
(28% of songs). Like Ultravires, half of its output is dance music (48% of
songs), there are some pop/rock songs (29%), and almost everything played is
from the 1990s. But the biggest difference is that Radiocentras concentrates
on news and information in its morning and afternoon drive shows, when
music is reduced to around 7 songs per hour. In morning drive, news bulletins
on-the-hour are about six to seven minutes in length. Even during the day, the
news bulletins are only reduced to five minutes. Radiocentras plays more bona
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 5

6. fide hits than does Ultravires, and so it sounds less eclectic than Ultravires and
has a wider appeal.
TABLE 4: CUME: VILNIUS
weekly
reach
Vilnius
weekly
reach
Vilnius
000’s
%
weekly
weekly
ratio*
reach
reach
Lith:non-Lith
Lithuanians nonLithuanians
%
%
35.9
35.8
27.0
21.6
21.2
7.8
5.8
4.2
2.5
0.8
0.5
0.2
42.7
44.5
11.3
29.9
30.2
11.3
7.2
7.2
0.9
0.9
0.6
0.3
29.2
27.1
42.6
13.4
12.2
4.2
4.5
1.2
4.2
0.6
0.3
-----
1.5
6.3
7.8
0.6
3.6
9.9
2.4
8.9
5.7
LR1 [state]
171
M-1
170
Znad Wilii
128
M-1 Plus
103
Radiocentras
101
Ultra Vires
37
LR2 [state]
28
Laisvoji Banga 20
Laluna [Klaipeda] 12
Pukas [Kaunas]
4
Kauno Fonas [Kaunas] 2
Tau [Kaunas]
1
local radio
7
other local stations30
other stations
37
+1.5
+1.6
- 3.8
+2.2
+2.5
+2.7
+1.6
+6.0
- 4.7
+1.5
+2.0
-----
* the ratio is “+” where it represents Lithuanians:non-Lithuanians, and “-” where
it represents non-Lithuanians:Lithuanians
source: Baltijos Tyrimai, 21May -12Aug 1997
Vilnius population (12-74) = 470,000
Znad Wilii plays the Polish music (20% of songs) that no other stations do,
and hence has a specific appeal to the non-Lithuanian population. Its music
output is more balanced, with about a third of songs being pop/dance, a third
being pop/rock, and the remaining third being pop music. 1990s songs make
up 91% of its output. It is music-intensive, playing 11 or 12 songs per hour
throughout the day. There are some big hits, but not a lot. The most positive
feature of the format is the lower proportion of dance music than its
competitors.
M-1 plays no Lithuanian songs and no oldies. About three quarters of its songs
are current “hits”, the remainder being entirely from the previous few years.
Like Znad Wilii, its music output is balanced perfectly equally between
pop/dance, pop/rock and pop music. There are hourly three- or four-minute
news bulletins throughout the day. The morning drive show has a lot of chat
and listener call-ins which reduce the music to eight songs per hour. During
the rest of the day, the station goes highly music intensive, fitting in eleven or
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 6

7. more songs in each hour. If Znad Wilii is the all-purpose radio station for nonLithuanians, then M-1 is definitely the all-purpose station for Lithuanians.
M-1 Plus is completely different from its competitors. Like its sister station, M1, it plays no Lithuanian music. Unlike any other station, it plays no dance
music. Unlike any other station, it plays no current hits. Around half (53%) of
the songs it plays are from the 1990s, around a quarter from the 1970s (28%),
and the remainder from the 1990s (16%) and 1960s (2%). Around a quarter
(23%) of the songs it plays are pop/rock. M-1 Plus has a five- or six-minute
news bulletin on the hour throughout the day but, apart from that, is incredibly
music-intensive. Some hours had as many as fourteen or fifteen songs
crammed into them! M-1 and M-1 Plus are complimentary stations, in the
sense that the music heard on one station is unlikely ever to be heard on the
other.
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 7

8. ANALYSIS BY AGE
When the reach/cume figures are analysed by age [see Table 5], you start to
see the differences between the stations’ appeal to different age groups.
The two state radio channels are skewed heavily towards the older
demographics, as would be expected. M-1 and Znad Wilii both have
impressive performances across the whole range of ages. Radiocentras is
strong in the 15-19 and 20-29 age groups, and Ultravires and Laisvoji Banga
achieve their best results with 15-19 year olds. M-1 Plus does well in the 15-19
and 20-29 age groups.
TABLE 5: CUME BY AGE: VILNIUS
ranked by age 30-39
weekly reach %
ages 12-14 15-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-74
LR1 [state]
M-1
Znad Wilii
Radiocentras
M-1 Plus
LR2 [state]
Ultra Vires
Laisvoji Banga
6.7
30.0
16.7
16.7
3.3
----13.3
3.3
13.4
50.8
22.4
41.8
34.3
3.0
29.9
10.5
24.7
58.8
34.1
38.2
45.9
2.4
14.7
9.4
34.0
32.0
32.0
17.0
16.0
5.0
1.0
1.0
38.3
25.0
26.7
10.0
10.0
4.2
0.8
1.7
58.7
19.0
21.2
8.2
8.2
12.5
0.5
0.5
local radio
other local stations
other stations
----3.3
10.0
1.5
3.0
10.5
0.6
2.4
14.7
4.0
4.0
4.0
0.8
3.3
4.2
1.6
14.7
4.4
source: Baltijos Tyrimai, 21May -12Aug 1997.
Vilnius population (12-74) = 470,000
When the table is indexed to remove the differences between the absolute
sizes of each station’s audience [see Table 6], the contrasts become even
more obvious.
The higher the percentage of dance music that is played on-air, the younger a
station’s audience will skew. Hence the appeal of, in descending order,
Ultravires, Radiocentras, M-1 and Znad Wilii to 15-19 year olds. And almost no
one over the age of 30 is interested in either Ultravires or Laisvoji Banga
because their formats are too radical (or merely non-existent, in the latter’s
case).
The profiles of M-1, Znad Wilii and Radiocentras are broadly similar because
their programming policies are quite similar. Znad Wilii does better than the
others in the older age groups because non-Lithuanians have no other choice
of station in the market, whereas Lithuanians can turn to state radio.
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 8

9. TABLE 6: CUME BY AGE - INDEXED
ranked by age 30-39
percentage of each station’s weekly reach in each age group
ages 12-14 15-19 20-29 30-39 40-49 50-74
Znad Wilii
M-1
LR1 [state]
LR2 [state]
Radiocentras
M-1 Plus
Laisvoji Banga
Ultra Vires
population
[Lithuania]
3
4
1
--4
1
5
8
9
14
4
4
20
16
25
38
32
42
18
11
46
53
55
49
18
14
14
14
12
11
5
3
18
12
19
14
9
9
5
3
22
15
44
57
11
11
5
3
5
9
20
20
15
31
source: Baltijos Tyrimai, 21May -12Aug 1997.
Vilnius population (12-74) = 470,000
Two interesting things emerge from this table. One is the lack of a station
targeted at 30-39 and 40-49 year olds. In Table 5, we saw that there are three
stations - state radio channel one, M-1 and Znad Wilii that all achieve around
the same 30% reach level in the 30-39 age group, but no single station
achieves anything fantastic. Why is this so? Probably because: every station
(but one) plays almost all new songs; and every station (but one) plays a lot of
dance music.
Which leads us to the second point. M-1 Plus. It is the only station with policies
of “no dance music” and “no current hits”, so why is it not achieving better
results in the 30-39 and 40-49 age groups? Indeed, Table 6 shows that sister
station M-1 (despite playing all new music) achieves better results in both the
30-39 and 40-49 groups than does M-1 Plus. M-1 Plus’ strength appears to lie
in the 20-29 age group, where it achieves respectable results.
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 9

10. M-1 PLUS
One assumes that M-1 Plus was launched to capitalise on the undoubted
success of M-1. Once M-1 had achieved spectacular results in the “youth”
radio market, it is likely that M-1 Plus was launched to target the “older” radio
market. But, in fact, M-1’s success to date is in the very same market, despite
its different music format. (It would be interesting to compare ratings data for
the periods both before and after the launch of M-1 Plus. It could even be that
M-1 Plus is cannibalising some of M-1’s own audience.)
So why has M-1 Plus not been successful in capturing the 30-39 year olds?
This could be due to a number of factors:

Not enough songs played on M-1 Plus are big hits. Only 33% of songs I
heard played on M-1 Plus had been Top Ten hits in the UK. This figure
should ideally be doubled;

The station is too uptempo. There was not a single song played in one
day that could be described as “AC”. The 30-39 age group like ballads
and slow songs, mixed in with the uptempo music;

Not only are there not enough big hits played on M-1 Plus, but many
songs were only ever released as album tracks, and not as singles. It is
not enough for the Music Director to merely choose “nice songs” for a
station format (ie: Paul Simon’s “St Judy’s Comet”) - the songs have to
be familiar to the audience;

There is a tendency on the station for the rock-orientated songs to be
played in clusters. For example, a half-hour period in the 0900 hour
played Foreigner, Midnight Oil, Meatloaf, Suzanne Vega (a rocker,
rather than a ballad), Bachman Turner Overdrive and Lenny Kravitz
consecutively. All these songs were hits of varying sizes, but this
amount of rock music in one period could be a turn-off factor;

Too high a proportion of the station’s music is from the 1970s (28%),
and not enough is from the 1990s (16%). There have been some huge
adult-orientated hits in the 1990s that are probably better known to the
audience than the songs from the 1970s;

The station does not live up to its own hype. There was a pre-recorded
promotional tape played regularly on M-1 Plus that spliced together
excerpts from several big hit songs. This was supposed to give listeners
the impression that M-1 Plus operated an impressive music policy. But
not once during the day did I actually hear any of these big hits played
on-air. It sounds suspiciously as if the music library of the station is too
big and the mega-hits featured in the promotion are not being played
regularly enough to make an impact.
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 10

11. 
Not enough “big name” artists (ie: Whitney Houston, Madonna, Abba,
Boney M) played regularly enough. I heard more than one Lenny
Kravitz song played in a ten-hour period, but he is not exactly a
household name to the intended audience.
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 11

12. SUGGESTED FORMAT
The data shows that there is no music station that the 30-39 year olds (and 4049 year olds) can really call their own. It makes sense to create a radio station
that satisfies this market, not through adopting a “niche” format, but through a
mass-appeal station that plays well-known, hit songs from the world of popular
music
Such a strategy would be more risky if it could be demonstrated that M-1 Plus
already occupies this same territory. But the BMF data shows clearly that M-1
Plus, whatever it set out to achieve, in reality does not hold much interest for
anyone over the age of 30 in Vilnius. Thus the strategy does not entail having
to convince M-1 Plus’ listeners to switch to another station. A station with a
general pop music format aimed at 30-39 year olds is likely to draw an equal
proportion of listeners from all the competing stations in the market.
The format would succeed by righting the wrongs exhibited by the M-1 Plus
format:
 play a high proportion of genuine big hit songs;
 play a high proportion of melodic, mid-tempo and down-tempo songs;
 play songs familiar to the audience;
 manage the music rotation system to avoid playing several similar
songs consecutively;
 play a lot of music from the 80s, some from the 90s, and small amounts
from the 60s/70s;
 deliver a consistent, hit-intensive product;
 play songs by the biggest artists regularly.
There are also some policies that M-1 Plus is following correctly:
 play no dance music;
 play no new songs;
 play no Lithuanian music;
 play a lot of music with little talk;
 regular news bulletins (though M-1 Plus’ six-minutes is rather long).
The music playlist for the format could be the same as that of the Tallinn
station, since the target audiences are approximately the same. There are
undoubtedly differences between these two radio markets, but to find precisely
what those differences are would require investment in qualitative research in
both markets.
Although the primary target of the format is 30-39 year olds, there would
undoubtedly be overspill in both the 20-29 and 40-49 age groups. How far the
format would succeed in penetrating the non-Lithuanian (ie: Polish) population
is difficult to determine without further research. But the format would certainly
sound different from Znad Wilii, the popular Polish-language station in Vilnius,
and would offer the non-Lithuanians an alternative source of music
entertainment.
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 12

13. SUGGESTED ACTION PLAN
The path for action can be divided into two distinct parts:
A) THE MUSIC;
B) THE PROGRAMMING.
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 13

14. THE MUSIC
i) IDENTIFICATION of specific songs that fit the format, the target
audience and the market. A total of 600 to 700 songs could be identified, which
would then form the total playlist for the station. No newly released songs
would be added. No “supplementary” songs would be played. Purely 600 to
700 songs rotated evenly across the station’s output.
ii) ACQUISITION of these songs. Some can be bought from record
stores in the US or Canada (where CDs retail cheaply). Some may only be
available on various artist compilation CDs released in Western Europe (the
UK releases more compilation CDs than any other country in the world). Some
titles can probably only be purchased on Russian/Bulgarian pirate CDs (which
may be available in the Vilnius market).
iii) IMPLEMENTATION of the songs. A clock (or several clocks) need to
be established that play the appropriate number of songs each hour from each
category (for example: 70s, 80s, 90s songs) and in a precise order. The clock
has to take into account the stop sets established in the traffic system for
commercials, and it needs to accommodate other fixed points such as news
bulletins, weather reports and announcements.
A system (computerised or manual) has to be established in the studio to
rotate the songs correctly. The DJs have to be trained how to use it. Rules
have to be established to cope with various “what if” situations. A monitoring
system needs to be introduced to enable the PD to check that the DJs are
correctly following the system.
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 14

15. THE PROGRAMMING
Obviously there is a lot of other work to be done to establish a new radio
station. News bulletins are very important for the station’s target age group, so
that a news section needs to be established with resources that enable news
reporters to compile up-to-date hourly bulletins during the daytime
broadcasting hours. This will require a subscription to Baltic News Service, TV
and radio receivers to monitor other stations’ news broadcasts, and a
computer for writing scripts.
DJs need to be recruited and trained. Fully automated stations without DJs are
not a viable option in Europe, since the audience expects to hear a programme
“presenter”, however minimally they may speak.
Jingles/IDs need to be commissioned and recorded, obviously not in English!
All the people working on-air at the station have to undergo training to
understand who is their target audience, and what that audience expects from
a radio station. For example, a DJ recruited for the station may be only 20
years old, but s/he needs to understand how to address an audience not of 20
year olds similar to him/herself, but of 30 to 40 year olds. The style of
presentation needs to be authoritative and informally friendly, and should not
resort to childish humour or inane comments.
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
page 15

16. A SECOND FORMAT
Given the sketchy nature of the ratings data provided by BMF, there is
insufficient information about listening habits to be able to establish a second
potentially successful format. More substantial information from BMF would be
required, probably combined with some qualitative research in the market
itself.
What is certain is that the “youth” market is already over-supplied with radio
stations, so that nothing would be gained from introducing another “hot hits”
format or another dance music format in Vilnius. The experience in other
European markets suggests that a rock music format is not viable for the youth
audience, because dance music is overwhelmingly the pre-occupation of the
youth in Europe.
Any attempt to introduce a second music format for the 30+ age group would
only cannibalise the potential audience for the first station. The majority of
people in this age group do not have “specialist” music interests, so that a
single station playing a mix of pop music, some AC music and some pop/rock
music serves their needs perfectly well. Furthermore, because the audience’s
knowledge of pre-1980s music is very limited, regardless of their age, there is
no mileage to be gained from contemplating an “oldies” station that plays
songs only from the 1960s/1970s. Very little of the music from this era is
known by ANY person in the former Soviet Union.
The idea of introducing “niche” American-style formats to the market is
premature at this stage. The experience of other Central and East European
radio markets is that these imported formats simply do not succeed. For
example, in Moscow, the only US-style rock music format in the market (Radio
7) failed dismally several years ago. In Riga, the only rock station in the market
(Radio Skonto) also failed dismally. In Moscow, a US-style new
age/jazz/instrumental station (Radio Prestizh) has failed to surpass a 2% reach
(probably equivalent to a 0.5% share) in the last four years of operation. It fails
because, however “nice” is the music it plays, all of it is completely unfamiliar
to the potential audience.
The issue here is simple. Compared to American (and, to a lesser extent, West
European) audiences, there is very little volume of music that is familiar to the
audiences of the former Soviet Union. If you play that little music with which
they are familiar, you create a successful music station. If you play any other
music, you fail. [With the exception of the youth audience, many of whom want
brand new music and nothing else.]
Grant Goddard is a media analyst / radio specialist / radio consultant with thirty years of
experience in the broadcasting industry, having held senior management and consultancy
roles within the commercial media sector in the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia. Details at
http://www.grantgoddard.co.uk
The Vilnius, Lithuania Radio Market
©1997 Grant Goddard
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