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Is The Writing On The Wall For Youth Formats?

In the 1960s US radio went through an explosion focused on the new and emerging teenage audiences – they were a new market, ready to buy and they had money, either theirs, or their parents.

Over the following 60 years, radio has generally been developed and driven by music formats with younger appeal – the pop business survives on ‘new and fresh’ – even though some of the music may have its roots in old songs, adapted for a new generation.

In the 21st Century, in developed markets there are three factors influencing changes in radio consumption:

1. Populations are getting older – the age ‘bubble’ moves as people are living longer with lower birth rates or parents waiting longer to have children.
2. Radio continues to attract a consistent number of listeners from a wide age-range but is gradually losing time spent listening as (mainly) younger listeners spend more time with other ‘media’ including gaming, music streaming and social media. However, radio still contributes substantially to streaming audio as these 2017 Australian results show:

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3. Measuring radio listening becomes more difficult. ‘Official’ measurement continues to adapt and uses a range of methods to report listening – in some cases face to face interviews and listening ‘diaries’, and in other cases CATI phone interviews.

1. In the UK personal diary placement and on-line recording listening,
2. In Germany CATI interviews to landlines – with around 10% of all calls to mobiles to try and capture listening habits of younger listeners and those who don’t have a land line phone at home.
3. In Australia and New Zealand, diary placement is supplemented by up to 30% of the sample from on-line panels. Italy has recently increased mobile contacts to 30%+ .

REPORTING results:

Key listening measures are:

1. The number of listeners – cume
2. Listening ‘volume’ based on the number of listeners in any given 15/30/60 minute period (depending on country) multiplied by ‘time spent listening’.

So, if younger (10-24) listeners are listening less AND their listening is harder to measure, their contribution to the overall radio landscape reduces at a faster rate than older listeners.

Current music trends show evolving music tastes that are sometimes driven by polarising music styles – for example, hard rock, urban and hip-hop music that attracts a highly passionate following but has little AC crossover appeal.

Successful contemporary and CHR formats need to deliver a broader range of listeners than may have been needed in the past, and AC radio needs to have a clear adult pop center.

Music formats targeting younger listeners need a strong entertainment message and personalities with adult appeal now more than ever. Failure to deliver risks a future of shrinking audience numbers together with reduced commercial appeal.