How To Be Their Favorite Radio Station - Radio Intelligence

How To Be Their Favorite Radio Station

From Nielsen (via All Access):

Americans spend 87% of their AM/FM radio listening tuning into their three favorite stations (based on the amount of time spent with each). What’s more interesting is that 58% of all listening goes to just one station, the listener’s favorite (called the ‘1st Preference’ station, or P1)

Let’s break this down.

First, this percentage is based on “AM/FM radio listening,” meaning it excludes any portion of listening which is devoted to other audio platforms: Spotify, podcasts, Pandora, etc. It doesn’t speak to the rise of that listening or the trending hours swapped between radio and other platforms. It is, therefore, only a partial view of the world.

Second, if we assume that all we care about is competing against other radio broadcasters and that people choose which stations they listen to, this tells you that almost 60% of a consumer’s listening is devoted to one station, their favorite. Since 87% of listening is devoted to only three stations, that means every listener’s second or third favorite station splits another 29% of their listening. In fact, being second favorite earns 19% of a consumer’s listening (one-third the favorite percentage), while being third favorite earns only 10% (only 16% of the favorite percentage). Everything after that is trivial in terms of the influence to your share rather than your cume.

So in other words, it pays to be the listener’s favorite station.

It pays to be the listener's favorite station.
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It pays to be in the business of growing fans and nurturing those fans.

So what are you doing right now to appeal to your fans?

And what obstacles to “favorite” are in the way of that listening right now?

Remember that “favorite” is not just a behavior, it’s an emotion. A listener either feels it for you or they don’t. And no one has ever fallen in love with a brand because of an obsessive focus on attributes over feelings.

If you are an Apple fanboy, why?

If you are nuts for Stranger Things, why?

Why is your favorite podcast your favorite podcast?

It all comes back to emotion and to earning the label “favorite.”

Posted in favorite, mark ramsey, mark ramsey media, Media, nielsen, radio, radio industry, Radio's Future, ramsey-blog, station