According to Kantar Media’s Dimension 2018 report, 88% of consumers listen to terrestrial radio, in addition to the 66% who said they listen to radio online and the 70% who use a music streaming service.
These statistics are cited as evidence of the continued resiliency of established media forms, despite trends toward connected media. In the report’s introduction, Kantar writes, “it is worth remembering that we are currently living in a mixed media economy.”
The company says the report is “an overview of the major trends and exciting innovations shaping the world of media and communications planning.”
Once they established that radio is still relevant, the report explores radio’s place more granularity in comparison to other media.
Kantar queried respondents about frequency of listening to radio. Specific to U.S. respondents, 27% said they listened to radio about once everyday day, and about 26% indicated they listened several times per day. Another quarter of respondents (24%) said they listen a few times weekly. Far fewer respondents said they listened more infrequently: 8.5% listen once weekly; 5% tune in two or three times per month; 3% listen monthly; and about 6% listen less than once per month.
Adults aged 35–44 were most likely to say that they listen to the radio several times per day (31.4%), compared to those 18–34 (27.1%), 45–64 (24.7%) and those 65 and older (21.2%).
The report also included data about online listening to radio, although it did not specify what was considered radio online. About 22% of those in the 18–34 age bracket indicated they listen to online radio several times per day — fewer than those who said they listen to terrestrial radio that often. Only 14.7% of the 35–44 group tuned in that often online, and 8.8% of the 45–64 and 8.5% of the 65+ chose this option as accurate.
In the millennial group, only 12.1% said they listen to online radio less than once per month; but 19.1% of those aged 35–44 and 33.7% of those 45–64 chose that as the accurate frequency of listening. Probably unsurprisingly, 31.7% of the senior group also said they listen to online radio less than once per month.
The Kantar report also dives into attitudes toward advertising (see Table 1.3). In 2018 and 2017, 26% respondents of respondents indicated that they dislike radio advertising generally. Compare that to TV ads — in 2017, the general dislike response stood at 32% but dropped to 27% in 2018.
While one-quarter of respondents aren’t a fan of radio ads, in 2018 43% of respondents said radio ads don’t bother them (up 1% from 2017); 37% of respondents said they were agnostic about TV ads in 2017 and 2018.
There was also a significant portion of respondents who liked radio: 24% said radio ads “can be enjoyable.” However, 33% said they the same about TV ads.
Consumers also appear to be savvy about alternative ways brands spread messaging; 68.5% indicated that they recognize sponsored TV and radio programs as advertising, only slightly down from the 74.6% who said traditional ads — whether on the radio, TV, social media or on websites — qualified. However, just over half said recommended results on a search engine were ads (Table 2.9).
On the connected media side, 70% of consumers said they use a music streaming service, and 13% of respondents globally said they use a smart speaker to listen to music. When that smart speaker figure is broken down by country, the positive responses doubled.
