AM/FM Radio Holds Competitive Edge for Music

While Two in Three Adults Listen to Music on Broadcast Radio Weekly, New Music Platforms are Playing a Bigger Role

Toronto-based Vision Critical in conjunction with Canadian Music Week just released online survey results that show that broadcast radio stations continue to be the leading music source for North American adults. However, a wide range of digital options appear to be closing the gap.

Nearly two-thirds of North American adults reported listening to music on AM/FM radio stations via standard or streamed radio in the past week. 

Responses show that Canadian adults are slightly more inclined to listen to broadcast radio than Americans—70 percent compared to 63 percent listen weekly.

Though AM/FM usage remains considerably higher than competing platforms, emerging music sources such as YouTube, music download services, Internet radio and streaming services have gained a foothold among online adults.

Key findings include:

• YouTube is a widely used platform for listening to music, especially among 18 to 34 year old adults. About 66 percent of 18 to 34 year old Canadians and 61 percent of 18 to 34 year old Americans listen to music on YouTube. This is virtually the same proportion of 18 to 34 year old adults who listen to music on broadcast radio stations (66 percent in Canada and 62 percent in the U.S.).
  
• Though music consumption patterns are generally similar between Canada and the U.S., the use of Internet radio and music streaming services is considerably higher in the U.S. More than one in four American adults listen to music on the Web, whereas only about 20 percent of the Canadian adult population do so where services such as Pandora and Spotify are not available.

“We are seeing that music and in fact, radio itself are shifting platforms. This is not necessarily at the expense of broadcast radio but as a result of the expanding array of music platform choices.  Radio still plays a key role in keeping its listeners connected, but digital options are clearly moving into the pure music position.”  - Jeff Vidler, senior vice president of media and entertainment at VisionCritical

The survey was conducted between March 19-20, 2013 among 1,506 Canadian adults ages 18 and over and 1,004 American adults ages 18 and over. Email invitations were sent to members of the Vision Critical Market Panels, offering a nationally representative sample for Canada via the Angus Reid Forum and for the United States via Springboard America. The survey was fielded in association with Canadian Music Week, March 19-24, 2013 at the Marriott Eaton Centre in Toronto. 

Strong Feelings = Strong Ratings

Toronto researcher Jeff Vidler recently showed me a new online approach to real time programming analysis which inventories down to the second the feelings of the viewer or listener as they watch video or listen to audio.

In a very short clip of a sports talk show the audience was curious, engaged, interested, excited, then confused, bored, disturbed and then tuned off.

The more deeply-felt positive emotions, ranging from amused to happy, the higher the level of usage.

Negative ones, like ranges of annoyed or apathetic, don’t take very long to cost attention span at the very least and lose a listener at the most.

Sales and management’s job is to push to use every minute to help them make money.

Talented programmers and personalities are able to find a way to do that by keeping the audience’s feelings positively engaged and their interest level high, relating all their content informatively and engagingly.

Then, there’s the majority of us, the majority of the time.

We've been reading the same lines on the same cards for too many years.

As you air check yourself, listen for great storytelling - immediate, local and personal - and count the positive emotions you feel.

Weak/no feelings = weak/no ratings.

"Small Sample Sizes .. But, Also Like Crack Cocaine"

Angus Reid Strategies' Jeff Vidler penned a terrific article (click to read it, pdf) "PPM Info: Too Much Of A Good Thing?" for the April 2009 print edition of Broadcast Dialogue magazine.

"Functionally, small sample sizes limit the accuracy of a lot of the minute-by-minute PPM data. This is particularly true when it comes to individual events."

It puts the issue of sample sizes in a slightly different frame, since PPM panelists have their meters moving for as long as 15 hours a day, seven days a week and the same people, more or less, comprise the sample for the entire survey periods for several years, rather than turning over every week as in diary measurement. Thus, we can drill down to one minute (or perhaps in the future, even shorter!) periods of listening.

"PPM gives you lots of tactical data but very little strategic information."

Yes, we know that the sample is tiny, but it's still fascinating to track. There's a lot of info there, following moment by moment what certainly looks like real radio usage by real folks, by and large.

"Most other products are consumed in the bright white light of day. You can see the clothes people wear and the cars they drive ... but radio is different. There's no price, no trackable transaction. And, being the one-to-one medium that it is, most people listen to radio by themselves."

Now that PPM has changed that. As Vidler writes, "if you've had the chance to see some of this (PPM) data, then you know it's more than a little intoxicating .. one taste isn't enough."

Is it that we only complain about samples when the results aren't to our liking? I don't think so, but these new-found abilities to drill down microscopically so much more than in the past will increase the pressure on ratings providers - radio's referees - to get and keep sample panels as representative and proportionally correct as possible.

Our futures (strategies and tactics) depend on it.