-
Coronavirus Concern & FM Music Programming
May 18, 2020
Have an opinion? Add your comment below. -
NuVoodoo has been tracking concern about the coronavirus since March 9 – more than two months. Each day sees a sample of at least 2,000 persons 16-54 nationwide. It’s a ton of data.
I’ve isolated three dates in the chart here: March 10 (the second day of our tracking), April 10 (with extreme concern at half the sample) and May 10 (Mother’s Day, with extreme concern down from its peak).
Many of us have settled into some sort of new “normal” while isolating (video chats with friends, food deliveries/pickup, or the odd etiquette of the masked grocery store). And it’s fair to say everyone is looking forward to or hoping for greater freedom to mingle in the months ahead.
Less than a month ago we’d seen the plurality saying “people should stay home until officials say it’s safe.” Now, however, a plurality says they’re “staying home until I feel safe” – but the percentage who say things should start opening up with precautions and conditions has also grown.
Meanwhile, radio is eager for people to return to their cars and commutes and workdays – to restore listening levels. It’s fair to say we’d all like to have 2020 restored to the way it was back in February. Yet, when we asked people what they most want to hear on their favorite FM music stations, we got similar answers in April and May. In each case, 64% wanted at least hourly updates on local coronavirus information.
While we wouldn’t advise following the smaller percentages who’d push stations all-information (or nearly all-information); the prescription remains short, well-curated hourly updates of local coronavirus information. Knowing your audience will help guide you on whether the updates are more attuned to reporting local cases or local businesses re-opening. But, retaining the franchise of being where to go for local information remains important while listeners deal with restoring their lives.
As more states attempt to get back to business as usual and listening levels slowly recover, stations will be under pressure like never before to rank at the top of buying demos. The monthly report card will keep coming, and the rules of the Nielsen game won’t be much different, but budgets likely will be. At NuVoodoo, we’ve come up with a game-changing way to make it easier to find and influence likely ratings participants: DNA Marketing.
Watch our short video for more information or download our overview at www.nuvoodoo.com/DNAFinally, there’s lots of information about listeners and coronavirus and the playbook we think will work best as stations move through and past COVID-19 in our April 30 webinar. You can find a recording posted on our website at nuvoodoo.com/webinars – you’ll get all the important information in about 25 minutes.
-
-