Nielsen: Adding Radio To Political TV Buys Generates Reach

This week’s Westwood One blog looks at how political campaigns can reach more registered voters without increasing their budgets.

Using Nielsen’s new local market media planning and optimization platform, Local Media Impact, agencies can determine the lift in reach achieved when adding AM/FM radio to television and digital campaigns.

• Nielsen case study: Beto O’Rourke’s Dallas TV campaign sees a +14% lift with 20% media allocation to AM/FM radio. In October 2018, Beto O’Rourke’s campaign spent $3.7 million on television in the Dallas market. No AM/FM radio was purchased. The TV campaign reached 79% of registered voters. To find out if it was possible to enhance this impressive reach, 20% of the TV budget was reallocated to Dallas AM/FM radio. The result from Nielsen Local Market Impact showed adding AM/FM radio to the plan grows registered voter reach from 79% to 90%, a +14% reach increase.
• Nielsen case study: Ted Cruz’s Dallas TV campaign sees a +15% lift with 20% media investment allocation to AM/FM radio. Nielsen LMI finds a similar story for the Ted Cruz media buy. During the same month in Dallas, the Cruz campaign spent $1.9 million on TV. No AM/FM radio was utilized. Using Nielsen LMI to reallocate 20% of the TV campaign to Dallas AM/FM radio, the new media plan generates a 15% increase in registered voter reach (76% to 87%).
• AM/FM radio makes your TV better. Regardless of the size of the TV budget, adding AM/FM radio to the media plan generates significant incremental reach. A Nielsen Local Media Impact analysis of a series of local media buys for political campaigns shows a 20% reallocation from TV to AM/FM radio resulted in a significant reach lift of registered voters, an average +22% increase in reach.
• AM/FM radio reaches those without cable: AM/FM radio reaches 42.7 million non-pay TV consumers who do not see ads on channels like CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC.
• AM/FM has a 78% share of ad-supported audio among registered voters: According to the latest “Share of Ear” study from Edison Research, AM/FM dominates listening among registered voters. AM/FM radio’s share of ad-supported time spent is over ten times the nearest platform.