A presentation by ROI Media Solutions suggests urban radio has an unmatched ability to reach and motivate African-American consumers on behalf of advertisers and marketers.
“Urban Radio in the PPM World” debuted at Interep’s ninth annual “Power of Urban Radio Symposium,” and says urban radio is the only radio format to effectively and efficiently reach the African-American consumer; employment and income drive ratings for urban radio; and Arbitron’s Portable People Meter audience ratings system provides insights for targeting and reaching the black consumer. (There is debate in the industry about whether the PPM method of collecting listener habit information gives full proper credit to black listening.)
PPM findings show that radio continues to be an influential medium among African-American consumers, reaching 97 percent of all black persons age 12 and older each week.
Additionally, black audiences continue to be extremely loyal to urban radio. Seventy-five percent of African-American listeners age 12 and older spend most of their listening time with urban radio, their number-one format preference.
The report also highlighted the importance of the black community to the local Philadelphia economy, one of the first markets to be measured by Arbitron’s PPM. Blacks make up 20 to 30 percent of the customer base for major Philadelphia retailers and financial institutions. Radio ads on urban radio proved to be most effective in reaching the consumer; nearly 30 percent of listeners felt that the ads would move them to seek more information about a product, while 25 percent felt the ads were interesting and engaging.
A copy of the presentation is available at www.arbitron.com/downloads/urbanradio-ppmworld.pdf
