Scarborough: Nearly 1/4 of Americans Tune In to Talk

A new format study from Scarborough Research shows that nearly a quarter (22%) of American adults 18+ listen to news/talk radio. St. Louis, Milwaukee, Seattle/Tacoma, Boston and Cincinnati have the highest penetration of news/talk listeners.
Statistics show that 52 is the median age of a news/talk listener. Twenty-four percent of news/talk listeners are 45-54 years old. Adults between the ages of 55 and 64 are 47% more likely to listen to news/talk. Seniors 65+ are 50% more likely to tune in to the format.
More than half (52%) of news/talk listeners are white collar. Those with postgraduate degrees are 82% more likely to tune in than the market average, and 37% of people who have a household income of $250,000 or more listen to the news/talk format. More than 80% of format listeners own their own home.
“Non news/talk format stations are now considering their options to provide their listeners with news and information that they had once not offered in the past,” stated Howard Goldberg, senior vice president, radio, Scarborough Research. “This will place an additional emphasis on the news/talk format stations to meet the programming needs of their core listeners.”