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The MIDAS Touch - RAJAR's Behavioral Radio Research
May 8, 2018
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Every quarter, RAJAR - the UK's audio measurement company - releases a little piece of research called MIDAS. It probably stands for something, I don't know; but it's a robust piece of research that measures all kinds of interesting things.
Here's the new MIDAS Spring 2018 study (which, for Australians reading this, means "Q1 2018").
I get the feeling, whenever I read MIDAS studies, that they ask a whole lot more questions than they actually let us see; but here are a few interesting things that jumped out at me when I read it...
Linear Radio is not very popular on a smartphone
Out of all audio sources, "live radio" (they mean linear radio) is #3 at 21%. That's just beaten by digital tracks (aka "my MP3 collection") at 22%; and Spotify-like services at a whopping 39%.
I've argued for a while that, on a highly interactive device such as a smartphone, an entirely uninteractive thing like a linear radio stream is unlikely to hold much interest. It's why stations like Capital (in the UK) and Kronehit (in Austria) offer a hybrid app which allows you to listen live, but to skip the bits you don't like.
Smart speakers - very big but not very
Smart speakers, we're told, are part of the future of radio: and that might be the case. 54% of all audio listening on them, says MIDAS, is to linear radio. So that's great news.
Except, in total, the amount of linear radio listened-to on smart speakers is just 2.8%. The television - or the mobile phone - is almost four times more popular for listening to linear radio. Yes, radio gets its unfair share of listening on a smart speaker; but there are precious few around, and those that do exist are not replacing radios any time soon.
Radio is a social experience for younger listeners
Talk to 15-24s, and only a third are listening on their own; they're most likely to be listening with "colleagues," and - in comparison with all radio listeners - are three times more likely to be listening to the radio with other members of their family.
Podcasts are not a social experience at all
The most popular pastime when listening to a podcast is... simply listening to a podcast, relaxing, and "doing nothing much." People really listen to podcasts; they're far less of a multitasking experience than the radio is. And while 53% of people listen to the radio on their own, that figure rises to 88% of people who listen to podcasts on their own.
This points, I think, to justification why podcasts should be priced differently than radio advertising. They are, it seems, much more valuable.
Podcasts are also stable through the day
Usage reaches a high at 8:15 a.m., but use of podcasts remains roughly constant right throughout the day until about 6:15 p.m.; and after an evening lull, again reaches similar figures at 10:00 p.m. ("bedtime"). It's a fascinating difference to radio--which starts very high, reaching a peak at 8:15 a.m. and by 3:15 p.m. radio has halved in popularity; and by 8:15 p.m. it's halved again.
All this data challenges us. A lot of it tells us stuff that we could have guessed anyway; more still, though, comes as a surprise.
RAJAR could keep this stuff secret, and only give it to the radio stations. It's to their credit that they don't, and regular as clockwork, publish it on their website. I'm unaware of any other radio research company that releases similar stuff so often. I'd urge you to take a look.
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