Radio's Inconvenient Truth

Fred Jacobs

Radio's addicted to the 25-54 year-old demographic, states longtime radio consultant and prolific blogger Fred Jacobs.

In a year-end recap of 2018 posting, Jacobs writes it's an age-old excuse – “That's what advertisers want” – has become a mantra that virtually every broadcast radio programmer faces. Bonuses are based on this target audience, research has become focused on this 30-year age span, and wins and losses are measured by where stations rank on its yardstick.

However for years, Jacobs says most radio companies have paid scant attention to younger consumers, as they first got iPods, then smartphones, and later Spotify and YouTube accounts to suit their music needs.

According to Jacobs, here's inconvenient truth:

• Many kids simply don't know what a radio is.  And by the time they're old enough to drive, that SUV in the driveway will pair their phones, providing them access to media and entertainment from the Internet (or satellite) service of their choice – platforms they're comfortable with and have grown up with.

So what does research tell us about Gen Z and how they listen to music?  To gain perspective on where music is being consumed in America, he cites a report from AudienceNet, a UK-based research company.  They sampled 3,000 Americans with online access, ages 16+ this past July.

This chart best visualizes the box radio has put itself in largely because of its 25-54 myopia:

Jacobs believes the 16-24 year-old demographic tells the story, where only 12% of music consumption is to AM/FM radio (note that broadcast radio streaming for music is in the single digits in every cell, not really making a big difference).  And when you isolate 16-19 year-olds – a demographic that radio hasn't even thought about since the 70s – their use of on-demand streaming platforms for music is almost 5x over broadcast radio listening.   The chart also indicates that even among that first 10-year group in the coveted “money demo” – 25-34s – music streaming services are now in the lead.

Jacobs suggests it's a good time to make some choices – either broadcast radio will finally have to justify and support stations that skew 35-64 to a stubborn ad community, or the industry will finally have to start getting serious about appealing to Millennials, as well as their younger brothers and sisters.  Radio has a serious Next Gens(s) problem that isn't going to magically resolve itself when today's teens become adults.