General consensus would point to one of the above options as obvious fact -- but according to Nielsen’s Q1 2015 Total Audience Report, the masses are mistaken. The answer is in fact … radio! In the age of mobile media, AM/FM radio remains the dominant and perhaps the most mobile, mass medium.
According to the report, radio reaches 93% of all adults age 18+ every week. TV was second at 87% and smartphones were third with 70%. I look at these numbers and once again I am struck by the yawning gap between radio’s efficiency and its waning share of ad budgets.
Four years ago, we began our partnership with iHeartMedia (formerly Clear Channel) because we believed in radio when others did not. This is not a tip of the hat to MediaLink, but more to what I knew iHeart’s legendary leader Bob Pittman would be able to help deliver. We believe in radio even more today and now the truth of its enduring power is evident, courtesy of Nielsen. That is the power of radio, and just as importantly, the power of radio advertising dollars.
As the new data demonstrates, radio is stable-to-growing while other media, such as TV and desktop PCs, are slightly declining. In 1971, about 90% of the population listened to the radio regularly. Today, that number is about 90%. This is an indicator that we still love to listen -- while other media habits have ebbed and flowed, radio has remained a regular part of our daily media diet.