Listening patterns to the on-demand versions of radio content “skew” more female than AM/FM radio content does. That’s one of the findings of a study from Westwood One, which commissioned it from Nielsen.
The company said that while many radio personalities and shows offer content on demand for replay later, little is known about the listener demographics. Summarizing, Westwood One says the study finds a female-skewing, younger and attentive audience.
The on-demand material in this study originally aired on Cumulus stations or Westwood One’s radio network (Cumulus is the parent of Westwood One). It used the Nielsen Total Audience measurement framework to measure audiences for “on-demand” content from Cumulus stations and national Westwood One shows. Seventy-five programs in the genres of news/talk, sports and entertainment were measured via listening on the audioBoom content platform.
The company announced these additional findings:
● Information-based on-demand shows (news/talk, sports) skewed younger than the AM/FM audience, while entertainment-based on-demand shows attract a similar audience to AM/FM
● The median age of news/talk on-demand listeners is 8 years younger than that of the AM/FM audience; the sports audience is seven years younger
● The concentration of women listening to on-demand content is higher than AM/FM
● Among adults 25–54, more than 40% of on-demand news/talk listeners are women, compared to 30% of AM/FM listeners
● On-demand content “delivers engaged listeners.” The company said listening occasions for on-demand content nearly twice as long as AM/FM
●Listening via computers accounts for a larger proportion of on-demand listening than mobile
● And the younger the listener, the more likely they are to consume on-demand content on a mobile device
Suzanne Grimes, EVP of corporate marketing at Cumulus and president of Westwood One, called it the first study of the demographic profile of on-demand radio content.
The company’s Doug Hyde explored the results in a bit more detail in a blog post, and he summarized the benefits to advertisers of on-demand platforms in the audio landscape: a higher female composition; a younger, information-oriented audience; brand extension for entertainment shows; and longer time spent listening, producing engaged, attentive consumers.
