Radio Must Cater For Younger People Or Risk Losing Future Audiences, Says Edison
If radio operators do not cater for the 12-24 age group they could risk an erosion of their audiences in the future, according to Edison Media Research. The group says that one of the most concerning trends in US radio over the past decade has been the consistent drop in listening among 12-24 year olds.
Clearly, many people in this age group are in full-time education – virtually all 12-27s are at school and 63% 18-24 year olds are also at college and university on a full time basis. Many also have jobs on top of educational commitments. This naturally impacts the amount of time they have for media consumption. However, listening to radio, more than any other media consumption, can be done alongside other activities and so could potentially be less affected by busy lifestyles than, say, television or magazines.
The 12-24s are a crucial audience group, for a number of reasons, says Edison. From an early age people form media habits and loyalties that can remain for their whole lifetime; during the teens and early 20s music takes on a very big role in people’s lives – “if radio does not fulfil the desires of the music-conscious youth, it risks losing them,” says the report. Historically, radio listening increases profoundly between 12 and 25 years of age; if this pattern stops, radio risks bigger losses.
Despite the fact that radio listening levels amongst this group have fallen over the last few years, radio is still the most popular of media activities, as shown in the graph below.
What will be worrying to the radio industry, though, both in the US and here, is that 75% of young people said that the fact that there are too many commercials is the reason that they do not listen to radio more often. They prefer listening to recorded music (74%). Other reasons include: radio has too much talk (63%); it doesn’t play the music they like to hear (51%) and they prefer watching television (47%).
One of the biggest problems for radio is that there are so few stations cultivating the young listener, says Edison. In most markets in the US only one radio station at most could truly be said to have a 12-24 focus and even then that focus only fully presents itself at night in most cases. The situation is similar across most of the UK.
The research showed that the issue is even more acute for young men, who seem much more frustrated with the choices they are being offered from radio. As a result, radio is increasingly vulnerable to satellite radio, the internet, or other new technologies that plan to provide options to the dissatisfied young male consumer.
The findings of this research could have significant long term implications for commercial radio operators in the US, UK and indeed across continental Europe.