Study: All Audio Influences Consumer Purchases+Country Listeners Lean Conservative

June 14, 2016

 

 

Data that shows radio helps consumers decide what to purchase shortly before they make the cash register ring will come as no surprise to seasoned managers and AEs. However, it’s always helpful to have more — and current — data to back up that claim.

On Tuesday, Mediavest | Spark and iHeartMedia released the results of a joint study that measures the correlation of various media and how they influence consumers’ purchase decisions. The results showed that all types of audio are now influencing consumers as they gear up to make a purchase.
The study measured consumers’ use of different media as they were headed to make a purchase. Audio, out of home, print, TV, digital video, search, and social media were all part of the study. The study analyzed the overall purchase journey behavior of 5,000 consumers.

 

As this next chart shows, AM/FM radio (light blue bars) is now in a bit of a battle with streaming audio (middle bars) and Satellite radio (darkest blue bars) as consumers get ready to make a purchase. The good news is, audio, no matter what form, ranks high when it comes to consumers getting ready to break out their plastic. However, at the time of the actual purchase, the strongest relationship is with satellite radio.

One of the reasons the study was being done was to measure the impact social media and search would have in the purchase process, and whether or not radio/audio was taking a hit because of the popularity of social and search.

The study concluded that the strongest relationship is seen consistently for audio and out of home. “There was a 90 percent or greater correlation between purchase consideration (across categories) and exposure to any audio or any out-of-home media in the half-hour before. This compares with a 33 percent correlation with any digital video, a 53 percent correlation with any print, and a 55 percent correlation with any television. Not surprisingly, search and social are also strongly related to purchase consideration.”

Newspaper Woes Continue
In its latest State of the News Media report, Pew reports that 2015 was another awful year for the newspaper industry, perhaps the worst since the recession. Pew reports that average weekday newspaper circulation, print and digital combined, fell another 7% in 2015, the biggest decline since 2010. Digital circulation was up only 2% for weekday and accounts for only 22% of total circulation. And in 2015, total advertising revenue among publicly traded companies declined nearly 8%, including losses not just in print, but digital as well.

Nielsen: Country Listeners Lean Conservative

June 23, 2016

               

The ratings firm Nielsen released new data Wednesday regarding Millenials and how their listening habits differ by political view. Nielsen is releasing the data to try to help the radio industry get the point across to politicians that radio is an important medium to include in their media mix. Country radio is America’s top format among listeners 18-34 years old, with more than 66 million tuning in to these stations each week.

Nielsen says Country radio listeners largely mirror the total U.S. radio audience, though they represent a larger share of Mild Republicans and a smaller share of Independent voters. Still, just as many Democratic voters listen to Country radio as Republican voters in the country’s top markets.
Digger deeper into the Country format Nielsen found that two other kinds of Country radio—New Country and Classic Country—reach “slightly more nuanced listener groups.” New Country stations tend to skew younger since their playlist is made up of more current hits, while Classic Country tends to skew older since their playlist is made up of more familiar Country songs from the past.
Nielsen says given that young voters are much less likely to be affiliated with a specific party than older voters, it’s not surprising that roughly 31% of the New Country audience are Unregistered, which is six points higher than the U.S. average. Meanwhile, Classic Country listeners lean heavily conservative: 39% of the audience is registered Republican, and more than two-thirds of this group classify themselves as Ultra Conservatives—13 points higher than the U.S. average. In addition, of the 36% of the audience registered Democrat, the majority identify as Conservative Democrat.