Country's Gen X (Conversation)

My Country's Gen X Problem post initiated a Facebook dialog:

Bob McNeill:  Of course country has a 35-44 problem. The average age of a country listener has been right in the middle of that demo for decades and now, with the influx of pop, they're disenfranchised. We never learn.  Country has always been the only adult format that's sustained by current music. Balance is always the issue. And with that, the development of core artists that aren't disposable as they are in pop formats. Disposable songs and artists are a danger to the country format. I fear we're allowing the music business to drive the direction of the format which is problematic since radio and records do have divergent goals at some point.

Ralph Cipolla:  Classic Rock PDs (and Sales folk) have been lamenting the inevitable march of time... now, they face what traditional Oldies stations did 15 years ago. The cell they owned - 35-44 - is now a secondary demo, as the format is firmly rooted 45-54. And each year, it gets one year older. The "newest" legitimately fitting songs in the format are now 25 years old, Led Zeppelin I is 44 years old and was the music of those who are now 60+ years old. Throwing in a category of polarizing Grunge & Metallica songs works for some stations with Rock roots and little competition, particularly in The South, but can be a disaster for others. I've always been interested in the Country airplay vintage v. audience age connection that appears to defy the typical music vintage to listener age if/then equation.  Is this a potential opportunity? A difficult-to-reach young cell appears to be coming along and could be welcomed into the fold, while a traditional core demo sees the ever-growing distraction of Sports/Talk & Talk & time-shifting tech that Arb can't yet measure - but they remain in attendance and need to be the object of a re-doubled engagement effort - assuming its not just a music issue (is it ever?)

Drew Edmundson:  I've always been more of a variety guy (mixing the classics in with the new) in pretty much any format. People 35-44 like new songs (I'm 44 and love Lady A, Zach BB, Aldean, etc). I think there needs to be a healthy dose of older songs so as to not alienate that demo.  I do nights on a country station as well as afternoons on an AC station and I see many crossovers. Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood, Tim McGraw, Jason Aldean, Kelly Clarkson, Lady A, Kenny Chesney, Faith Hill, etc.  I look at this as a good thing for the country format.

Leslie Humble As a DJ/Programmer of Country Music dating back even before my days at WSM and The Grand Ole Opry, I see several factors at play. A large section of the age group 50 - 65 hate the Pop country with the semi Country vocal over Rock/Pop instrumentation. The aforementioned 35-44 Cell is on the edge of being torn by the extreme fragmentation that is today's micro cell centric choices. Even 35-44 should be more incrementally targeted.  Two things: Going back to Jaye's original thought on capturing the 35-44 demo. Isn't it the same as it's always been? Lifestyle. Target your promotions, on air comments, remotes, to a 40 year old woman for that demo. Lifestyle. As far as the music....I must slightly disagree that Garth or 90's are as far as you can go. Even if it's testing that way. I do national voice over work mostly now and my shows are live ones. I see 20 year olds jumping up for Hank Jr., John Anderson, Mel McDaniel, Charlie Daniels and on and on. It reminds me of the story of how top 40 was discovered by Todd Storz by watching the same song played over and over on a jukebox. The music that demo and others will accept is also a self perpetuating thing. How many of us feel like we helped "break" or Make a hit record by playing it? Musically WE tell them what is a hit or good in many cases. The only distinction, to me, is that the PRODUCTION VALUES, must be of the level we expect today. 

Jaye Albright: Thanks, to all of you.  Personally, I don't think that it gets solved by playing 90's or earlier for a mainstream or a "new country" station, since the majority of 35-44 available to country radio today were not listening to country music when they were teens.  It's about balance, as more than one of you have noted. The great majority of today's A artists, almost all of which have emerged in the last five years aren't crossover acts.  Right now, country has 18 touring acts able to fill arenas, which is an unprecedented development in the history of the format.  We do have a handful of them you'd call "crossover" acts, but still the vast majority get played only on country radio.

PS:  If this piqued your interest and you want some specific advice on what to do next, click on the CRS 2013 session "Younger Country: Is 18-34 the New 25-54? and listen to very savvy panelists John Dimick/Lincoln Financial, Chris Huff/KSCS and Sean Ross/Edison Research share their perspectives on coalitions vs conflicts between tastes of the wide country  demographic targets.  It's an hour well spent, if you missed that session at CRS.

Country's Gen X Problem

Arbitron's full Radio Today 2013 annual update tracking all format quantitative and qualitative trends reflects both change and growth as my blogs of the last week have previewed.

It highlights something troubling that you're going to want to look at locally. 

Has recent under-30 growth hurt 35-44?

* All of the demographic proportions have remained relatively steady except for adults 18-24, which rose to its highest level in a decade, and adults 35-44, which declined to its lowest.

*  The country and new country formats are a strong performer in TSL, regardless of age group. Among the 16 top formats, it was tied for No. 1 among persons 12+, and was No. 1 by a full hour among persons 12-24. It ranked No. 2 by a wide margin among adults 18-34, was also No. 2 among adults 25-54, and third with adults 35-64.

Suggestion:  look very carefully at 25-29, 30-34, 35-39 and 40-44 in local perceptual and music test data.  Arbitron's data tracks actual PPM and perceived diary usage data, but isn't designed to be used to choose your most effective target, but 35-44 is going to be with us for too long as a marketing target for our clients to ignore any weakness there.

It's the only target cell in 2013's national averages where it appears that country radio is failing to get its fair share of the total population.

* Radio Today 2013 (get the full client exclusive report at "my.arbitron.com" (the Arbitron customer site where you download data). 

Scarborough Surprises

Radio Today 2013 was posted on "my.arbitron.com" this week (that’s the customer site where you download data) and it's full of fascinating facts about every format.  The country format data is  especially interesting, as it reflects both change and growth.

Where do country radio listeners go when they are on the Internet? 

Really, no big shocker in those stats, given that when you look at country listeners in 2013 you're looking at a very large mass audience, but what did surprise me is this comparison of country listener behaviors compared to the average radio format:

"Take college courses?"  Who knew?

Just another indication of powerful positive info on our busy and engaged audience today, just the kind of people advertisers want to reach.

Country Radio Listener Education Levels At All-Time High

More great info from Scarborough and Arbitron:

The 51.4% of the Country + New Country adult audience that has attended college reached an all-time high in Spring 2012.

- Radio Today 2013 was posted on "my.arbitron.com" this week (that’s the customer site where you download data)

Country Radio Listeners Are Affluent And Becoming More So

Radio Today 2013 was posted on "my.arbitron.com" yesterday (that’s the customer site where you download data).
 
As Country remains the No. 1 format in America with an all-time-high 12+ national share of 14.2, there is also very exciting qualitative data along with the quantitative for every format. 

I am going to share a few quick headlines over the rest of this week, which hopefully entices you to dig into the data, comparing it to your local stats.

The 26.1% of Country + New Country adult listeners that resided in households generating $75,000 or more per year in Spring 2012 was an all-time high.

The study is also chock-full of other info about Country (and all of the other top formats).

Arbitron Country Radio 2012, State By State

If you have media buyer clients who believe that country music on radio is a Southern Redneck thing, you're going to want to share Radio Today 2012 with them when the updated annual report is released in early December.

Thanks to Arbitron, A&O&B has been blogging the country format's latest stats over the past few days.

• Country Radio Today - 2012
• Listening and Lifestyle Profiles of American Radio
• Country's National Audience Composition

When ranked by state, country radio really shines in six places and they aren't all southern by any means, but having locals of rural areas does seem to help an area index better than the national average average quarter hour persons share of 14.1.

South Dakota has 24 country radio stations which deliver an average share per station of 37%, an index of 262.96!

The other states which deliver DOUBLE the average persons quarter hour share are Montana (36 stations, delivering an average share of 35.87), West Virginia (32 stations' average share per station is 33.81), Wyoming (an average of 32.24% of all average quarter hour persons listening for the state's 29 country stations).

Kentucky has the largest number of country stations (70) of all the states which produce twice the share of the average.  The average country station in the Bluegrass State has a 31.49% of all average quarter hour persons listening to radio.

Election 2012 battleground state Vermont's nine country stations index 198.87 when compared to the national country average share with their 27.84% of the Green Mountain State radio audience.

26 more states can brag that their average country radion station delivers a higher than the typical share on a national basis (and again you'll recognize a number of hotly contested states in election years):

Missouri - 73 stations' average share of 24.43
Oklahoma - 46 - 24.32
Kansas - 39 - 23.52
Nebraska - 42 - 23.48
Iowa - 41 - 23.13
North Dakota - 23 - 22.84
Tennessee - 72 - 22.55
Arkansas - 50 - 22.33
Indiana - 49 - 21.37
New Hampshire - 9 - 20.82
Idaho - 25 - 20.05
Maine - 9 - 19.06
Alabama - 47 - 18.4
South Carolina - 31 - 18.16
Minnesota - 64 - 18.0
Wisconsin - 50 - 17.89
Virginia - 45 - 17.76
North Carolina - 40 - 16.88
Mississippi - 29 - 16.88
New Mexico - 34 - 16.41
Ohio - 48 - 16.28
Michigan - 51 - 15.67
Maryland - 14 - 15.13
Louisiana - 37 - 14.86
Oregon - 28 - 14.66
Alaska - 10 - 14.05 (index of 99.89)

States which the average country station only falls 10% below the national norm:  Texas (13.78), Utah (13.65), Pennsylvania (13.19), Georgia (12.78) and Arizona (12.59)

Finally, the state-by-state averages also prove that all statistics can be deceptive.

Rhode Island is listed as a state with no country stations and so in the Radio Today report gets a "0" next to the state's AQHP.

Tell that to The Hall Group's Cat Country, WCTK!

In spite of their downtown Providence studio location, their city of license is across the state line in the historic whaling town of New Bedford, Massachusetts.

So, for the purpose of the national analysis, that's the state getting credit for their listeners.

Listening and Lifestyle Profiles of American Radio Consumers

Radio reaches people wherever they are: at home, at work, in the car— nearly everywhere.

Regardless of one’s age, the time of day or the listening location, Americans depend on radio as a reliable media companion for entertainment, news, information, community service and, increasingly, social networking.

Radio has always been and continues to be a vibrant and relevant part of our lives.

              -- Arbitron, Radio Today 2011

That's why smart management, sales and programming executives are anxiously-awaiting the 2012 update, due in early December.

An in-depth snapshot of radio listening nationwide and by individual formats, Radio Today 2012 combines Scarborough qualitative data with Arbitron audience data to develop a comprehensive profile of radio listening across America. It also examines the listening activity for the most popular radio formats representing the Fall 2011 Diary and October-November-December 2011 PPM™survey periods, often in comparison with Fall 2010 and earlier years.  Features include each format’s weekly reach (Cume); national average-quarter-hour share overall in PPM™, Diary and non-Metro counties; segmentation of audience composition by age; time spent listening (TSL); educational levels; income by household; gender balance; ratings by daypart and state by state; ethnic composition in Differential Survey Treatment (DST) markets and listening by location (at home vs. out of home).

For the last few days, I've been blogging some of the stats for the country format which will appear in the new report.

More advance factoids about Country Radio Today:  1.152,900 of country's national cume of 3,480,100 (33.1%) listens at home and 66.9% (2,327,600) listens away from home.

Country's strongest average quarter hour persons daypart in the latest update of the report is Mon-Fri, 10:00 am-3:00 pm, delivering a 14.6% share of total average quarter hour persons for all formats.  Weekday morning drive (6:00 am-10:00 am) delivered a 14.4% share.  Weekday afternoons (3:00 pm-7:00 pm) deliver a 13.9% share, weekday evenings have a 12.0% share 12+, while weekends perform at 100% of the total week share with a 14.1%.

Country's national average 12+ total week cume audience (24,719,000) by daypart, followed by that daypart's format daypart average index compared to the Mon-Sun, 6am-Mid number:

MF 6-10 am:           33,196,100 - 137.72
MF 10-3 pm:           34,074,100 - 142.78
MF 3-7 pm:             31,485,100 - 125.5
MF 7-Mid:              11,373,700 - 39.3
Sat-Sun 6am-Mid:  19,021,600 - 77.33

Which states are best/worst for the country format?  That's coming in my next post, with thanks to Arbitron.

Country's National Audience Composition

Average Quarter Hour Persons %  Cume Persons %

12-17  5.1%                                    5.8%
18-24  11.6%                                  10.2%
25-34  15.0%                                  15.5%
35-44  15.6%                                  17.2%
45-54  19.9%                                  20.3%
55-64  15.7%                                  15.6%
65+     17.1%                                  15.5%

These averages are based on 1,857 country stations measured in 2011 by ARB.

Note that 18-24 is the most time spent listening-driven demo, since cume percentages are higher than AQH in all other cells.

Arbitron's 2012 edition of the "Radio Today" annual format updates will be out the first week of December.

Country Radio Today - 2012

Arbitron's much-anticipated 2012 edition of the "Radio Today" annual format updates will be out the first week of December.

As usual since 2008, the stats will reflect annual format averages through the preceding years' fall book.  Up to 2007, the report used shares ending with the spring survey. 

It should come as no surprise that the country format is UP:

Combined country shares (both "country" and "new country" stations added together) have shown impressive consistency over the last decade:

ARB reports that country's weekly cume of the 1,857 measured stations in the last year is 66,025,700 with an average quarter hour persons of 3,479,000.

The average share trend is positive and consistent over the last ten years.

Sp02 (2003 Radio Today):  13.4
Sp03 (2004 Radio Today):  13.4
Sp04 (2005 Radio Today):  12.4
Sp05 (2006 Radio Today):  12.9
Sp06 (2007 Radio Today):  13.0
Sp 07 (2008 Radio Today):  13.1
Fa08 (2009 Radio Today):  12.9
Fa09 (2010 Radio Today):  13.4
Fa10 (2011 Radio Today):  13.1
Fa11 (2012 Radio Today):  14.1

Country's national share in the new report will be 7.4 in the PPM markets, up from a 6.4 and a 7.1 in the previous two years, 15.3 in diary markets (up from 14.1 and 14.5) and 26.2 in unrated (county-by-county reports) markets, which were not tracked prior to 2011 but are also up from a 25.6 last year.

The gender makeup of that 3.5 million average quarter hour persons:  47.4% men 12+ and 52.6% females 12+.

I'll have more details in the next two days on audience composition, daypart, shares by state, qualitative, ethnic and TSL.

ARB: "Country Continues as America’s Favorite Format"

Radio Today, 2011 edition (click to download your copy) is hot off the press and it contains great news for booming country music radio.

The No. 1 format overall, in both Diary and non-Metro areas, Country reached more than 65 million listeners each week on more than 1,700 stations—the most outlets of any music format, not including 300 Classic Country stations. It also was the top format among most age groups (including a big lead with adults 25-54) and in most dayparts. Country enjoyed some of the longest time spent listening of all formats, and its listeners set a new high in college degree attainment in Fall 2010.

Other fascinating mega-trends in radio's overall usage:

Radio Is Increasingly Mobile…
Away-from-home listening has been growing in proportion to all listening in every weekday hour in recent years except between 5 AM and 9 AM; at-home’s share of radio in the 6AM-10 AM daypart was actually up in Fall 2010 compared to Fall 2008.

…Especially in Evenings
The major shift in recent years has been between 8 PM and 9PM, when in Fall 2010, the majority of tune-in occurred away from home; the reverse had been true in Fall 2008 and in earlier years. The 9 PM to 10 PM hour also has been steadily gravitating toward out-of-home. And combined with out-of-home gaining by proportion in earlier evening hours, for the first time the overall 7 PM to Midnight daypart in Fall 2010 saw the majority of radio listening occurring away from home.

…And on Weekends, Too…
Despite the smaller audiences compared to weekdays, radio’s average quarter-hour ratings away from home increased on weekends from 2 PM and 11 PM and again from 4 AM to 5 AM between Fall 2008 and Fall 2010. The majority of listening in the 10 AM hour shifted to away from home in Fall 2010 for the first time. As it is during weekdays, the 9PM hour is headed that way, as well.

…And Notably Among Teen Boys
Tune-in among teen boys is steadily shifting toward away-from-home listening, which could gain the lion’s share of tune-in by teen boys by the 2012 report.

Weekday Evening Listening Is Rising
Radio increased its listenership, particularly significantly during weekday evenings, when the medium scored higher Cume Ratings among men aged 18-64 and women 25-64. Radio also posted higher ratings in midday reach among men aged 25-64 and women 45-54, as well as on weekends with men 35-64 and women 45-54.