Day Three: Edison. Pandora. Radio.

 

 

 April 12, 2016

 

More eyeballs have viewed our stories on this issue and more comments posted than any other story we’ve run over the past several years. Edison Research’s report that consumers change stations on radio 22 times per commute was quickly turned into a White Paper by Pandora looking to boost its credibility with advertisers. The radio industry returned volley with several articles claiming the Edison research was flawed and providing its own data pointing out just how strong radio has been over the years and remains today. We’ve put it all together for you here in this story in case you’ve missed any of it.

SiriusXM Says It Now Has Over 30 Million Subs

SiriusXM issued a press release Monday that said it added 465,000 net new subscribers in the first quarter of 2016, resulting in a new total of 30.1 million subs as of the end of Q1. That's a record for the company. Self-pay net additions were 348,000 in the quarter, resulting in a self-pay subscriber base of 24.6 million at quarter's end. SiriusXM reports first-quarter revenue on April 28, 2016.

 

Limbaugh’s Listeners Donate Over $3 Million

On Friday, April 8, The Rush Limbaugh Show held its 26th annual on-air Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Cure-A-Thon. Limbaugh dedicated portions of his three-hour nationally syndicated radio program to encourage listeners to join the effort to find a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease, and myeloma, and to improve the quality of life for patients and their families.

More Detail From The Edison Research Study Our Friday story on Edison Research’s latest in-car study caused quite a stir around the industry. What really hit everyone’s hot button was how Pandora quickly flipped the data into a White Paper the company will show advertisers. Radio Ink was denied access to the full Edison study (they told us it was proprietary for clients) so the most specific detail we had was what Pandora pulled from the research to use in its White Paper presentation. But now we see more…

Edison Research President Larry Rosin has posted a new blog which includes much more detail from the study, including a stat that says nearly 1/3 of consumers leave their radio tuned to your station even when the commercials come on.

Here’s what Rosin writes: “We asked those who listen to commercial radio what they do when commercials come on. Things divide pretty much into quarters in terms of what people report that they do when they hear commercials.   The biggest group – 29% say they pretty much stay tuned.   But about 23% report tuning away immediately. There are other groups who say they tune away after a time – and about 70% in general do say that they tune away at some point during commercials.” Rosin says this has clear potential implications for radio advertisers.”

Edison also asked respondents to tell them the main reason they switch a radio station when they do. The most common response was commercials, but there were other reasons as well.

And Edison asked respondents to wear GoPro camera’s so they could view what consumers do while driving. 3,000 minutes of video was recorded and decoded. Rosin says that in 24% of the cases when content switched to commercials, the commuter switched away within 15 seconds. In the survey, the same percentage self-reported this same behavior. “So it certainly seems that this is probably the case – about one-quarter of commuters tune away from commercials as soon as they come on.”