Why We Still Do Radio!

As a radio nerd, I often enjoy reading the stats on the Arbitron website.   There are a couple of reports on there that came out in March, but I don’t think we’ve reported on them yet.

For instance, this one:

Ninety-five percent of adults 25-54 with a college degree and an annual income of $50,000 or more tune into radio over the course of a week.

We know that age group is the younger edge of our demographic in classical music radio.  If you add the 55+ college-educated listeners, it’s even more impressive.   All in all, Arbitron says, more than 234 million Americans are listening to the radio each week.  Arbirtron also breaks out the stats for listening on other platforms than terrestrial radio:

Radio’s Digital Platforms: AM/FM, Online, Satellite, HD Radio™ and Podcasting

In the latest study from Arbitron and Edison Research, we continue to explore how radio expands its reach beyond the AM and FM bands, and how users of online radio are spending their time with other forms of media.

• The weekly online radio audience has again exploded in the last year, to about 42 million Americans aged 12+.
• One in five Americans aged 25- to 54-years-old listen to online radio on a weekly basis—an all-time high.
• Awareness of both satellite radio companies remains essentially flat for the third year in a row at around 60 percent.
• Online radio is showing up in the Arbitron ratings, thanks to Portable People Meter™ (PPM™) measurement.
• An astounding 69 million Americans viewed online video in the last week.
• About 42% of Americans 12+ owns some kind of MP3 player; the vast majority of them own an Apple iPod® or iPhone™.
• The growth in MP3 player ownership is now fueled by adults.

If marketers and underwriters would keep in mind that radio is still reaching nearly the entire U.S. population — in all sorts of forms — they wouldn’t be so quick to pooh-pooh radio. We’re still a powerhouse, and we’d have to be pretty dumb to mess this up.

Happy Friday!