Heavy Users Of TV, Internet ‘Not Sacrificing Radio Time’

Source: Inside Radio®

While the perception may be that AM/FM radio listening declines significantly among consumers having discovered other, perhaps newer media such as audio or video streaming or social media – especially given the greater opportunities to do so since COVID – a Katz Radio analysis of Nielsen's Scarborough Supplemental Study conducted during fourth-quarter 2021 shows radio's reach among heavy users of internet or TV differs little from that among average adults.

According to Nielsen's findings, reported in the latest edition of Katz's “Sounds Answers” blog, while AM/FM reaches 89% of adults 18+ -- with the average person spending 7 hours and 35 minutes with radio weekly – that reach is still at 88% of adults regardless of how much additional media is consumed. When focused on consumers in the two top usage quintiles for internet or TV, heavy users of the former still spend an average 7 hours and 18 minutes with radio, while TV's heaviest viewers actually spend more time with radio than average, 7 hours and 44 minutes weekly.

“In true media junkie fashion, these users are not sacrificing radio time to compensate for their amped-up usage of other media,” Katz's report says. “People are not replacing radio time with other media usage, even as they adopt or favor another media.”

While digital devices may propel increased exposure to, and use of, other media, a key takeaway from Katz's report is that advertisers should not assume that these users are not as vested in radio as most of the population.