You May Not Know It — but Broadcast Radio Is Kicking Your Ass!

By:Tracey McCormack Founder of McCormack Media Services — a Modern Media Training Consultancy Firm To kick off the New Year with a bang-full of good news, Nielsen released a new report last week that basically

You May Not Know It — but Broadcast Radio Is Kicking Your Ass!

By:Tracey McCormack

Founder of McCormack Media Services — a Modern Media Training Consultancy Firm

To kick off the New Year with a bang-full of good news, Nielsen released a new report last week that basically said “radio, once again, is the nation’s top reach medium.”

Nielsen has a new “Comparable Metrics Report” that measures all media (TV, radio, connected TV devices, PCs, smart phones — you name it) on an apples to apples basis and compares their reach. Well, guess who wins that race? You guessed it….

The report states that “AM/FM Radio reached over 90% of all adults in a given week in 3rd Quarter 2015 — and that percentage is the highest of all media and is consistent across all demos!”  TV was a close second with 85% of all adults and smart phones followed with a 74% reach.  After that, there’s a steep drop off for the remaining platforms.

Equally as fascinating is that radio’s reach numbers were consistently the winner week over week and no other medium could make the same claim. This was no fluke. The data proved the same outcome in each week of the quarter.

Coupled with a recent study conducted by Google (yes, Google) which states that “using broadcast media (TV and radio specifically) greatly enhances search results” — radio should now be able to get its fair share of the advertising pie.

Especially when it comes to SMBs (small and medium-sized businesses), this information is an invaluable combination which will prove to those smaller advertisers that “radio + search” is the real winning combination to drive their sales.

I know some great minds in broadcast radio from all across the US — Stephanie Palmer, Tucker Flood, Jeff Greenwald and Bob Call — my readers want to hear your opinion!  Please comment and let me know how we can execute on this great news!  I’d love for someone to challenge this information as well and make it a real debate!  Andi Frieder or Mike Reed — we’d love to hear from you too, even with an opposing opinion!