Strategic Transformation of RMF Group: Building Business Resilience and Sustainable Growth
Client
RMF Group (RMF FM, MAXX, Classic)
Client Overview:
Grupa RMF is one of Poland’s most recognized media organizations, bringing information, music, and entertainment to millions of listeners every day through stations such as RMF FM, RMF MAXX, and RMF Classic. The Group’s mission is to connect people through reliable news, engaging content, and positive emotions. Its core business focuses on selling advertising space across radio networks and its digital platforms.
Additionally, the Group offers comprehensive online and cross‑media solutions – including display, audio, and video campaigns – serving clients at both national and local levels through an extensive sales network. Beyond broadcasting, RMF continues to develop innovative digital platforms that strengthen its relationship with audiences and support meaningful communication between brands and their listeners.
The Challenge:
Civitta collaborated with RMF Group to initiate a comprehensive strategic and organizational review. The engagement aimed to maintain market leadership and ensure the seamless integration of digital products and operations across all business units. Key focus areas included a thorough strategy review for the core radio stations RMF FM and RMF MAXX. In parallel, a deep dive into the organizational structure identified efficiencies essential for navigating a media landscape increasingly shifting toward digital audio platforms.
The project team developed its recommendations using multiple data sources. This involved over 60 interviews with management and team members, an initial review of the existing strategy, and analysis of internal operational data. Crucially, focus groups and expert interviews were conducted to gain a deep understanding of current audio content consumption patterns. The core objective of our engagement was to support RMF in managing its core and new business amidst intensifying competition and a rapidly evolving audio market.
The challenge focused on two critical areas:
- Maintaining Listenership: The group’s mission was to maintain its dominant radio market position, particularly as younger audiences shift towards digital alternatives.
- Digital Integration and Monetization: The company needed to effectively integrate digital media offerings and generate commercial value (monetization) from new digital formats.
Our Approach:
The Strategy Review was the first focus area, dedicated to a deep understanding and refinement of the RMF Group’s product offering. This involved a detailed review of the existing strategy, with active client involvement through workshops, working groups, focus groups, and media expert interviews. This process was crucial for diagnosing listener needs and assessing the perception of brands.
The second workstream centered on Organizational Structure and Efficiencies. For this, we collaborated closely with the client, conducting multiple interviews with employees and management, workshops, and collaborative sessions to establish a baseline of the current organizational structure. Based on this analysis and the shared insights, we developed specific recommendations that not only addressed structural adjustments, but also led to quantifiable gains in operational efficiency.
Services Provided:
- Business and corporate strategy review
- Market research
- Customer analysis (via focus groups and quantitative data)
- Competitive landscape analysis
- Organizational structure and process audio
Results & Impact:
As a result, we delivered a comprehensive set of strategic and operational recommendations, which included an adjustment in strategic priorities and a organizational restructuring of the RMF Group.
Key outcomes focused on: enhancing competitiveness for radio brands, improving process efficiency, and implementing structural adjustments. Furthermore, our guidance extended to streamlining the management structures to boost efficiency across all core business units.
Key Takeaways:
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The data shows that a common industry belief – that younger media users will come back to traditional channels (like radio or TV) over time / as they aged – does not fully hold up. To truly grasp the current audience’s audio content needs, essential in-depth focus group research was conducted. The modern media strategy needs a fundamental change, moving away from defining target audiences strictly by age. Instead, it should be built around “listening occasions” aligning the energy levels of media brands with distinct moments and contexts.
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Civitta’s expertise made a critical difference by shifting the analytical focus beyond traditional market trends, directly integrating a productivity perspective into the strategy. This commitment to rigorous evaluation, utilizing multiple data sources including focus group insights, ensured all recommendations were data-driven and grounded in current audience behavior, thereby building resilience for long-term growth.
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The approach is highly relevant across the broader Central European and Nordic region, where companies often focus intensely on growth but frequently overlook productivity as a strategic lever. Retail, FMCG, and banking face challenges similar to those faced by media industry: physical networks remain crucial, but they are costly and risk becoming oversized relative to changing demand and the shift to digital channels.
