Bouvard: Radio Is America's #1 Mass Reach Medium

 (L-R): Pierre Bouvard, Stacey Schulman, Zach Sang and Tom Griswold

Westwood One CMO Pierre Bouvard moderated a Radio Insights breakfast panel Tuesday at Nielsen’s Consumer 360 Conference at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, DC.  The annual conference brings together the media research community, advertisers, brand marketers, and thought leaders to discuss navigating big data to unlock better insights and anticipate future trends.

The morning’s Insights session, the only one featuring and promoting radio, presented data and conversation about radio’s reach, ROI, and its power to amplify brand messaging through native advertising and integration. The panel featured Stacey Schulman, EVP, Strategy and Analytics at Katz Media Group; Janice Finkel-Greene, EVP/Director of Buying Analytics at Magna Global; and Westwood One’s Tom Griswold, co-host of The Bob & Tom Show, and Zach Sang, host of Zach Sang & The Gang.

Bouvard, Chief Marketing Officer for Cumulus Media and Westwood One, provided feedback Tuesday on the major significance of the findings of the just released Nielsen Q1 2015 Total Audience Report. (Click Here for original posting.)

His takeaways:

• Radio is #1 in reach among Adults 18+, 18-34 and 35-49.
• Among Adults 18+ Radio’s weekly reach (93%), surpasses TV (87%), Smartphones (70%), Social Networks on Smartphones (61%), PC (54%) and Smartphone video (37%)
• Radio’s 18-34 weekly reach advantage over television (93% to 76%) is significant. 
• Among 18-34’s, the number of days of weekly usage is led by Smartphones (5.9), followed by Radio (5.0), Television (4.7), Tablet (4.6) and PC (3.6). 
• 18-34’s are more frequent weekly users of radio versus television. 

While radio is known as a frequency medium, Bouvard adds radio’s reach has remained consistent while television has eroded. Radio now finds itself as America’s number one mass reach medium.