Which Comes First: Personalities or Music?

For the seventh consecutive year, the percentage of core radio fans who listen for personalities over music has held steady in Techsurvey 2025 from Jacobs Media  Strategies.  According to Fred Jacobs blog, the line was first crossed in their “Why Radio?” question back in 2019.  That was when those who say a main driver behind radio listening flipped from being about the music to being rooted in personality appeal.

Through the pandemic and its aftermath, the gap – admittedly small – between DJs vs. music as contributors of driving radio listening remains.  In fact, not much has changed, especially in recent years regarding the power of personality on radio versus the appeal of music.  While only narrowly ahead of the thousands of songs heard every day on broadcast radio, the aggregate appeal of hosts and shows has mostly flatlined since the COVID outbreak.  But it still ekes out the win over those drawn to radio because of the music stations play.

The chart below has been widely printed and quoted over the past half dozen or so years, a compelling story that reinforces the value of proprietary hosts and shows versus music, which has become highly commoditized over the past couple of decades as playlists comprised of millions of songs became available either for free or for an affordable monthly fee sans commercials.  At those relatively low prices, just about anybody can afford to have millions of songs available on their mobile device.  Great, timely, funny, moving personalities aren’t nearly as available or common.

And yet, many radio companies and stations seemingly struggle with this consistently strong audience desire for entertaining personalities.  While it may be true that talent is generally more expensive, harder to manage, and frequently more problematic than merely building a playlist on a music scheduling system, its long-term growth and ability to build and grow brands is proven and indisputable.

This is a relatively new reason we’ve come up for why some consumers are devoting less of their media time on AM/FM radio.  While last year, about one in five (22%) pointed to an MIA DJ as the excuse for less TSL, we can see in this year’s study, it’s now up to more than one in four (27%).  Men, Millennials, and fans of spoken word radio formats are the most frequent complainers, according to Jacobs.