It is time for radio broadcasters to set aside our differences and join together to help save the Internet. Study the graph to the left and reflect on its implications. (Click to enlarge.)
This is data from the latest Council of Research Excellence study conducted by the Ball State University Center for Media Design. We’ve written about the study in the past, and you can find relevant links here.
The study is unique in that media usage is measured directly while observing people consume media. The numbers shown are not estimates or self-reported behavior. This is real-time recording of what people are actually doing. Almost a million minutes of observation went into the study.
The vertical axis is the observed daily reach of each medium. The horizontal axis is the observed daily consumption in minutes.
Television is the run-away winner. It has the highest reach and twice the daily consumption of any other medium. At the other extreme, you find portable and online video viewing. Virtually no one watches it, and the few that do spend little time with it. This is consistent with the study we cited the other day that showed that 98% of video consumed was done on the television, not on line and not on a portable device.
The important information is towards the middle of the graph. Notice that Online usage is very close to radio usage. Radio has nearly 80% daily reach, and something like 110 minutes of daily listening.
Online reach is slightly less than radio’s, at about 70%, and consumption a little more than radio, almost 120 minutes. Online includes both web surfing and e-mail.
Here’s the problem. If you haven’t heard, radio is dead. Nobody listens to radio anymore. How many boom-boxes have you seen on the subway lately? The whole business is kaput. And online consumption isn’t much greater than radio listening!
The conclusion is obvious. If radio is dead, then it must also be over for online.
Here’s the curious thing. Most radio listening is to local stations. In all but the largest markets it is spread across a couple dozen stations. Most people listen to fewer than a dozen stations, with the majority of quarter-hours going to just two or three. Therefore, most of the quarter-hours go to just a few top stations.
How many web sites are there? How many different places can people go on the web? A million places? A billion places? How much time is devoted to e-mail alone? Think about how thinly spread that 14 hours a week is. If online usage is only 120 minutes a day, once we back out e-mail, how little time can any web site get?
The web has a TSL problem. More than 70% of Americans go on line every day. Yet they can’t spend much more than a couple of minutes on any site. (And research confirms this.)
Most of us in radio have spent a career trying to understand and increase TSL. I think we need to give our online brethren a hand.
Maybe we should write a book.
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