TV Viewers Multitask. What About Radio Listeners?

Nielsen has just released a new study documenting Americans’ simultaneous consumption of old and new media.

As reported at nielsenwire, 70% of tablet users and 64% of smartphone users use their devices at least several times a week while watching television. A large number (42% and 40% respectively) do it everyday.

The majority of people use their smarthphone or tablet to check their email, but large numbers also use them to kill time during commercial breaks.

The fact that people read their emails while watching television shouldn’t come as a surprise. This is just the latest in a long series of studies that confirm that media consumption is not a zero-sum game.

New-media growth does not have to come from cannibalizing old media. In fact, some studies have shown that new-media can drive increased interest in traditional media.

A 2009 Radio Insights post highlighted an earlier Nielsen study showing that new-media does not take away from traditional media.

Nielsen’s Susan Whiting noted that:

Another misconception among some in the industry is that media consumption is a zero-sum game--with television the potential loser. Yet recent research...confirms what we at Nielsen continue to find: that people keep adding more media to their lives without abandoning their TVs.

This was before the release of the iPad and when feature phones out-numbered smartphones. Now two years later Nielsen finds little has changed. New-media consumption continues to grow while people continue to consume traditional media.

So is that true with radio? Are people using their smartphones and tablets while listening to radio?

It’s a good question, but one that remains unanswered. In a 2009 post we lamented the fact that no similar research had been done looking at radio.

In 2010 we pointed out that while Nielsen continues to fund studies demonstrating the continued strength of television, Arbitron, which makes nearly all its revenue from radio, had yet to conduct similar research for radio.

Arbitron still hasn’t shown any interest in studying the relationship between radio and new media consumption.

The company spent its time on this year’s Radio Show main stage telling us such things as there’s been tremendous growth in car GPS units, and that drivers would love a system that helped them recover their stolen car. Wow.

Now that’s the kind of information every radio station can benefit from.

Comments

[Richard Harker]

Bill, thanks for contributing to Radio Insights and presenting your perspective. We too would encourage readers to download and read the Infinite Dial studies.
A search on Radio Insights will show that we’ve read each of the Infinite Dial studies. We’ve cited the studies when they touched on issues we thought relevant for our readers.
While you may feel that Arbitron has made a strong case for radio in the studies, the vast majority of questions have little to do with radio. Large portions of the studies are devoted to such things as online video and social networking. Do we really need another study that shows the rapid adoption of Facebook, the penetration of WiFi networks in the home, or the “passion” for cell phones? A Google search on any of these topics will find a cornucopia of studies on these topics.
The opposite is true for radio. There is very little objective research on radio–far less than for television or new media.
That is our primary complaint about the Infinite Dial series. Radio seems almost an after-thought in their design Here’s just one example.
Page 21 of the 2011 study shows the rapid growth of online radio, now 9:47 per week. How does that compare to broadcast radio? There is no comparable graph for broadcast radio. Why not?
A little sleuthing finds that on page 59 the stack-bar graphs include radio. The purpose of the graph has nothing to do with radio listening, but it does reveal that daily time spent with radio is 2:06.
(Why radio is reported as daily listening and online listening is reported as weekly listening is a separate methodological complaint, but we’ll let that pass.)
So it would appear that weekly radio listening totals 14:42, over 50% higher than online’s listening.
If that’s true, it would seem to warrant some attention in the executive summary, or at least a graph in the presentation slides. But there is no reference to the fact in either.
That’s just one example of the many lost opportunities to shed much needed light on the health of radio.
In the entire study there is just one single question regarding broadcast’s fate in a digital future (page 60). Just one.
As a company that depends on broadcast radio for the majority of it’s revenue, shouldn’t Arbitron devote its considerable research prowess on actionable information to protect its meal ticket?

[Bill Rose]

Perhaps you didn't see or read our free Infinite Dial study which looked at the relationship between radio and new media consumption in depth. Together with Edison Research, we've conducted these studies since 1998. Frankly, several of the "insights" you point out are indeed found in the Infinite Dial series. In particular the finding that media consumption is not a zero sum game. Please refer to pages, 7, 9 and 11 of the executive summary. Quoting from implications on page 11 of the executive summary, "Media consumption on digital platforms is an extension of traditional platforms, not a replacement.
The proliferation of digital platforms means people are finding more time in their day to consume media, and they are finding new places do so."

I encourage you to check out Arbitron's web site (www.arbitron.com/home/radiotoday.htm) for a wealth of free information to help radio tell it's story. You can also sign up to get our periodic newsletters for planners and buyers.

Finally, your characterization of The Road Ahead is incomplete and biased. To selectively pick those two points misses the big picture. 1) Radio remains the King of All In-Car Media; 2) there are new technologies that have the potential to impact radio's hold on an extremely valuable media environment.