Women+Connected Cars: More Than Ever

Six out of every ten women in America can connect to the Internet in their car, according to the Alan Burns and Associates/Strategic Solutions Research study of 2000 women, and the study says AM/FM radio is still the dominant audio choice in those connected cars.

“Most women now know they can connect to the Internet through their phone or the built-in dashboard entertainment system,” said Strategic EVP Hal Rood. “Yet those women continue to listen to radio most. 71% of them listen to radio most in their car. The components of that are 65% to the over the air signal of a local AM/FM station, 4% to the online stream a local station, and 2% to the stream of a station in another city. By comparison, only 14% choose to listen to a pure play streamer most, and 6% to satellite radio.”

In comparison, the numbers from “What Women Want – 2017” show that among women who can’t or don’t know they can connect to the Internet in their cars, the “listen most” sources are 81% to AM/FM radio over the air, and 2% to radio streams. “Radio’s numbers are lower in connected cars, but not to the degree I think most people expected,” said Burns founder Alan Burns. “In aggregate, that’s a loss of only about 15% for radio in the connected car. That’s significant, but certainly not a disaster.”

Burns added, "Women still love the radio station they listen to most (58% love, 96% love or like) and in most areas, radio's images are very consistent with our data from five years ago. They still feel like their P1 radio station is a good or even best friend (76%), and the 'best friend' vote has actually grown to around one in five women."

The Burns/Strategic study results are being released in a series of four free webinars. The next, on Thursday, February 23 at 2pm EST/11am PST. The Thursday installment of "What Women Want-2017" will reveal not only radio's best defense against pureplay encroachment, but also what's happening in connected cars. Register for the free 30-minute webinars by clicking here.