Country Listeners: 80% Caucasian, But Increasingly Hispanic

Just as Arbitron reports on Black and Hispanic radio audiences, The Media Audit newly-updated national country qualitative study presented this week to the Albright & O'Malley Pre-CRS client seminar shows that country’s Hispanic audience has been growing.

Country Radio: The Backbone Of Rebuilding Domestic Car Sales

Radio-Info's Tom Taylor was in the room yesterday at the Albright & O’Malley Pre-CRS session.

He accurately reports today: The Media Audit country qualitative report presented "should a wakeup call (or jump start, to use another automotive cliché) for sellers at country stations."

With an index number of 125, they’re 25% more likely than the average U.S. consumer to cruise past that Toyota lot and “buy domestic.”



Country radio reaches the most domestic vehicle owners. Country has a cume rating of 14.1 with domestic owners, ahead of News/Talk (13.2), CHR (12.4), Classic Rock (8.8), Dance CHR (8.6) and Public Radio (8.1). Interestingly, those rabid fans of talk radio are near the bottom of domestic car-buying loyalty, at 7.7.

It's Not A Recession For The Average Country Radio Listener

Of course, unemployment levels are affecting country radio user households as much as they are the average American. However, at today's Albright & O'Malley Pre-CRS Seminar, I'll present data from The Media Audit qualitative national averages which shows that our average listener's household income was actually UP last year. (watch this space all week for more country audience factoids)

Meet the Family

“The better we know our target, the more we can make them a part of our station family, building loyalty and hitting the target where it lives.” - Phillip Beswick, The Media Audit

So, thanks to TMA, A&O's Jaye Albright will be presenting the current qualitative profile of the country format's radio listener as a part of next Tuesday's Albright & O'Malley Pre-CRS client seminar at the downtown Nashville main library auditorium. The A&O presentation covers an extensive array of demographic, socioeconomic and consumer shopping information.

For example, TMA shows that country’s Hispanic audience has been growing, though the format continues to be 80% non-ethnic.

The Media Audit, established in 1971, is a syndicated, local market, multimedia, qualitative audience survey measuring radio, radio dayparts, TV channels viewed in total and by dayparts, TV newscast viewing, daily newspapers and other local and regional print publications, exposure to outdoor billboards, direct mail and local market internet websites.

This will be the third qualitative snapshot of country listeners The Media Audit has performed for the Pre-CRS A&O client meeting since 2006.

It has been two years since the last update, so we’ll focus especially on target changes which impact sales and programming.

The Media Audit: Hispanic Listening To Country Radio Is Increasing

A new analysis, based on all country radio listeners in the 84 Media Audit Markets surveyed between 2001 and 2006, will be released in detail at Albright & O’Malley’s Pre-CRS “Sunrise Seminar”, which also shows growth in internet usage, support of the Republican party and a decline in country listeners who are registered Democrats

A&O are presenting yet another reason to attend this year’s Country Radio Seminar and arrive very early on Wednesday, February 28, 2007.

This first look at new data on country listeners provides evidence that the CRS-Edison Research project on what country music needs to do to appeal to Hispanic radio listeners is very timely, given that TMA’s 18+ telephone sampling shows an increase of 34% in the number of Hispanics who report listening to country radio in the last three years. We will present a detailed look at country qualitative trends at our Pre-CRS 'sunrise" seminar.

A few other highlights of the TMA national country radio usage data:

* The largest percentage of the country audience in 2006 is 35-44 (24%).
* Almost 77% of country radio listeners are between 18 and 54.
* Both 25-34 and 45-54 usage has been very stable over the last three years.
* The number of country radio listeners online at least once per month has almost doubled from 47.1% in 2001 to 80.5% in the last year.
* The percentage of country listeners who are registered Republicans has been on the increase for the last three years while the percentage who are registered Democrats has been decreasing for five straight years.
* 67% of all country radio listeners say they voted in the past year.
* 82.8% of country listeners questioned by Media Audit in 2006 are not reached by any other format.

Also to be revealed at next Wednesday’s A&O client meeting are the results of “Roadmap 2007,” a perceptual study of 10,062 listeners across the U.S. and Canada who completed an online questionnaire on the type of country music they like best, reasons for listening to their favorite country station, degree of satisfaction with that station, voice tracking, streaming, HD Radio, marketing preferences, their attitudes toward participating in a diary, telephone or metered radio rating surveys,

These two A&O research presentations are just a part of a terrific slate of presentations, speakers and special events for their clients who are attending CRS. Now A&O is opening the meeting to the public by invitation only.