Edison Research Webinar Looks At Behaviors Of Listeners To Individual Radio Formats

P1 Data By Format

In a webinar TODAY (9/24), EDISON RESEARCH's LAURA IVEY offered new data from a supplemental INFINITE DIAL survey that focused on the different demographic profiles of P1 listeners for 11 different radio formats, Hip Hop, Country, Classic Rock, Top 40, R&B, News-Talk, Alternative, Classic Hits, Contemporary Christian, Sports and Hard Rock/Heavy Metal.

In "Radio Listener Profiles: An INFINITE DIAL Report," IVEY plotted the formats by age, sex, and ethnic makeup, as well as what devices the listeners own by format (listeners to the Rock formats and News-Talk more likely to have a home radio, Top 40 and Hip Hop less likely; Sports and Top 40 listeners most likely to have a smart speaker, Contemporary Christian, Classic Hits, and Classic Rock less likely). Hip Hop listeners are most likely to listen through headphones or earbuds, with Classic Hits the outlier with significantly fewer listeners through headsets than any other format.

The data also showed what social media platforms are favored by P1s in each format, with Top 40 overindexing for every social media platform and R&B listeners overindexing for all platforms except LINKED IN. FACEBOOK remains the leader fora ll formats, with younger-leaning formats also favoring INSTAGRAM and SNAPCHAT.

As for online listening (not restricted to radio streams), Sports. Top 40, Alternative, and Hard Rock led the way, with Classic Hits and News-Talk trailing the field. Narrowing the question to whether the listeners have listened to AM/FM radio online, none of the formats topped 50%, with Sports on top at 45% and Classic Hits at the bottom with 11%.

Alternative listeners are most likely to be podcast listeners. Music is among the top three podcast topics for most formats, with News/Info also showing up in the top three for six formats and History in four. Surprisingly, True Crime is in the top three for only three formats.

Conclusions included that "radio continues to have a hardware challenge," but that smart speakers are "part of the answer"; that FACEBOOK remains dominant in social media but stations should look at other platforms strong with their P1s; and that music discovery has moved to YOUTUBE and elsewhere.

« see more Net News