The Nielsen Audio Programming Team contributes this week’s Programming To Win column, as Bill Rose and Tony Hereau dive into data from the company’s recent study, entitled State Of The Media: Audio Today. Rose and Hereau examine the relationship between the workday and radio dayparts, listening at home vs. away and Millenial listening trends.
By the Nielsen Audio Programming Team: Bill Rose and Tony Hereau
Recently Nielsen released our new report State of the Media: Audio Today which profiles radio listening across America in more than 250 local markets.
The headlines from Audio Today include radio’s widespread reach across demos, geographies and ethnicities (nearly 92% of all American’s 12+ use radio on a weekly basis); the delivery of a highly qualified audience for advertisers (62% of all radio listening comes from the full-time working crowd) that is reached just before they decide to shop (64% of the listening happens away from the home); and profiles of every major demographic detailing their number one format of choice (Country for many of them) in addition to top dayparts and weekly time spent with radio.
Between the public part of the report and the full appendix for clients which details national listening stats more than 20 major formats, there’s a lot to soak in from Audio Today…so today we’ve picked out three main takeaways that programmers will want to pay attention to.
Working Drives Radio Listening
Simply put, the likelihood of radio being a part of the consumer’s day is directly related to their working status. This is one of the reasons that the most-listened to hours and dayparts nationwide happen during commute times or during the work day. Nationwide, looking at both diary and PPM markets combined, 7am is the number-one-rated hour during the day, and 10am-3pm is the top daypart.
So it’s no surprise then that when we looked at the composition of the national radio audience, a large majority comes from full-time workers.
EDITOR’S NOTE: these are simply screenshots from the audio today pdf report. If the resolution is not high enough let Nielsen know and we can figure out how to get you better graphics.
While these findings are great for the sales department, they should also inform some of the programming and marketing strategies you employ (pun intended!) every day. These might include finding ways to entice your morning audience (where the highest percentage of listening comes from full-time workers) to stay with the station once they arrive at work, or positioning your contests with some sort of working angle included. The bottom line is that you’ll have the most luck building day-by-day tuning habits with a listener who works, because they’re the most likely to use radio.
Location, Location, Location
The other factor that relates to radio’s high propensity of employed listening is the location – where listeners are tuning in during their day. Radio receives a very high percentage of its’ overall tuning when audiences are away from the home (because they’re working). Nationally the away from home number is 64% over the course of the entire week, and spikes to 72% during the middle of the day and afternoon drive.
However, this doesn’t mean that every PD in every format should focus exclusively on reaching listeners when they are away from home. For example, looking at the format-specific data contained in the Audio Today appendix you’ll see that the home versus away-from-home composition varies significantly across radio formats
The key is to do your homework on your format, in your specific market, and use that information to tweak how you keep listeners engaged with the station. Knowledge is power, and understanding how much of your audience is tuning in at home or away-from-home during different times of the day can help you win the battle with your listeners. The competitive media landscape changes when people step out the door!
Millenials: Did You Know?
One of the demographics profiled in Audio Today are Millenials (defined as aged 18-34). Here are a few factoids that programmers targeting younger audiences should know:
- 90.3% of all Millenials use radio each week. That’s a pretty impressive stat considering this audience is one of the most connected and socially active of any other. It also speaks to the mainstream success of some of radio’s most popular formats with reaching younger listeners (Pop CHR, Rhythmic CHR and Country in particular).
- Speaking of Country, it’s actually the number one format (by audience share) among Millenials in the United States. Country’s expanding appeal among younger listeners is one of the reasons for the format’s recent success.
- 72% of Millenial radio listening happens away from home. Along with Generation X (ages 35-49) Millenials have the highest proportion of audience tuning in while out and about. If you’re a station targeting 18-34s, you may want to find ways to reflect your listeners’ lifestyle and activities away from the home.
To see what’s in the Audio Today report, you can go here to download the 15-page executive summary, and also head over to the client website for the appendix which contains all of the format-specific information.
Reach the Nielsen Programming Services Team at ProgrammingServicesTeam@nielsen.com and follow the latest insights on Nielsen Wire at www.nielsen.com/newswire.
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