I am sure you have seen these types of studies before that ask the hypothetical question…. if a product were to disappear would you miss it? In the last few weeks the folks at Mark Kassof & Co. conducted some research along these same lines asking questions about radio.
According to the Kassof study of 1,289 Americans, Radio isn’t going anywhere any time soon, and almost 50% of respondents said they would miss FM a lot, 29 % somewhat and 18% a little. Just 7% said they wouldn’t miss FM at all, while 1% did not have an opinion. In terms of demographics, listeners age 45-54 would miss FM the most (55 % said a lot), while just 31 % of 18-24s said they would miss it a lot.
AM Radio did not do so well as 51% of younger people said they would not miss AM radio at all if it went away. If fact only 11% said they would miss AM radio a lot, while 17% said they’d miss it somewhat, 18% said they would miss a little and 2% didn’t know. I suspect if this same study was conducted in Canada the number of people who would miss AM Radio would be greater especially in the “flat” provinces where AM signals are huge, and in some markets the AM’s generate as much revenue if not more than the FM’s.
However there is still lots of love among listeners who prefer the news/talk format with 32% saying they would miss AM a lot, 38 % somewhat and just 19 % wouldn’t miss it at all.
It is the 31% of the 18-24’s that we need to be concerned about, and we need to be looking at ways of enticing this group who will soon be 25-34 to check out radio. Moving to HD will help as more and more new vehicles are rolling off the production lines with HD Radio as standard. You can read the full study here
Radio is still very popular and there are lots of studies in both the USA and Canada that indicate 93% of the population or more listen to radio each and every week. Think about that for a moment… how many brands or companies would love to have that many people consume their products or services each and every week. I continue to be puzzled by those want to knock the medium for not having a greater share. Radio has a greater weekly share than television, it blows away newspaper and makes billboards, and magazines look rather pathetic.
Motor vehicle manufactures know from the research they have conducted that consumers expect the radio on the dashboard. This was talked about a great deal at last year’s DASH conference in Detroit and I am sure it will be hashed about again at this year’s DASH event which happens in 3-4 November.
