Friday, March 1, 2013

CRS: Study Takes You Inside Listeners’ Homes

Country Radio Seminar’s 2013 research study was delivered in front of a packed house at CRS 2013, providing an in depth look into the lives and attitudes of Country radio fans and their interactions with the medium.

This year’s study was an ‘Ethnographic Study’, which profiled Country fans across the nation, examining them in their day-to-day environments to gather qualitative information regarding their use and consumption of County radio in an era filled with an array of music media outlets.

Radio consultant and CRS research chairman, Joel Raab said, “Going beyond X's and O's allows us to examine not only attitudes, but behavior. This added insight gives programmers new depth in understanding our fans.”

The fans selected for the study varied signifant in age and lifestyles and the results found that Country music touches the lives in deeply personal ways. And the study raises a key question: when Country fans/listeners respond with real emotion, why are radio stations becoming more and more like their automated competitors?

Among the study’s key findings were:

- Radio’s competition is no longer only between stations. The fight today is against all of the other media: Television(outlets like CMT/GAC/TCN), YouTube, Pandora, and even personal mobile devices.

- People are choosing to listen to the device that presents the path of least resistance. In the car, that remains radio. At home or in the workplace, there is a much more competitive situation: television, in particular, at home and the Internet at work.

- If one listens to radio today, it is often devoid of emotion. And yet when you talk to people in their homes, they place the emphasis on the emotions that country music elicits.

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