2-26-15
In a study debuted by Edison Research at the Country Radio Seminar, Edison took a look at how radio and other media fit into the morning routine: waking up, getting ready for work, hitting the road, and starting the workday. First, and interestingly, frequent Country listeners have a little edge in the a.m.: 45 percent identified as a "morning person," compared to 40 percent of Americans overall.
Looking at those Country listeners, Edison reports that 45 percent wake up each day to the alarm on a mobile device, while 33 percent use a traditional alarm, and 16 percent use an alarm set to wake them up with radio. Thirty-six percent actually have a radio in the bedroom (compared to 61 percent for an alarm clock, 59 percent for a TV, and 52 percent who keep a smartphone in the bedroom.
Edison's Larry Rosin and Megan Lazovick presented the study, and Rosin said, "Our presentation has fascinating data about those first moments in a person's day -- everything from what they do while still laying in bed to what they do while sitting at work. Radio needs to make sure it stays competitive in those first moments of the day and adjust its strategy if necessary to do so." To that end, the presentation advises radio to "Be the alarm." He also pointed out that radio has a "hardware problem" and the need to get more radios into listeners' bedrooms.
Radio In The Passenger Seat
The picture brightens quite a bit for radio once those people have hit the road; as Edison notes, "Radio is riding shotgun." The peak hour for in-car listening is 7-8 a.m,, and the mean commute length, one way, is 26 minutes -- 23 percent of the Country listeners surveyed reach work in 1-10 minutes, while for 5 percent the trip takes 45 minutes or more. Nearly all -- 87 percent -- head off to work in their own vehicles, and 86 percent of those who drive are all alone in the car for the whole trip.
And they're listening to the radio: A full 85 percent use AM/FM radio during the drive. CDs are next, at 32 percent, a personal music collection is used by 31 percent, 23 percent use satellite radio, while podcasts and Internet radio tie at 7 percent.
CRS EVP Bill Mayne said, "Without question, this year's Edison study will drive conversation and thought on morning radio listening. I find the takeaways that programmers look for are 'content and software issues'. The sneak peek I have had into the results seem to indicate that we have more of a 'hardware' issue to consider, as the landscape of listener habits have changed. It's revealing to think that people now check e-mail and social media before brushing their teeth. The pattern of behavior 'getting off to work and school' definitely runs at a different pace today.
Rosin also suggested morning shows should "provide hints and ideas for making mornings simpler and more efficient. One way is to stop providing information your listeners don't care about or use radio for any more, like traffic." He also had some ideas on the programming clock: "People are in their cars, yet we do these staccato breaks. We are talking to people at the one place they have the most access to the station-changing button and we create radio that is designed for tuneouts. Then they get to work and go into at-work modality where they are less likely to tune out and we create 'no tuneout' clocks."
The Stats
To gather its info, Edison conducted in-home interviews in Houston, Las Vegas, and Scranton, along with man-on-the-street interviews in Vegas and New York's Times Square. They combined that with 1,540 online interviews with adults 18-54, in which the participants kept a diary of that morning's behaviors.
(2/27/2015 2:55:55 PM)
Yup. There's nothing most of us enjoy more than waking up to long set of shitty spots followed by a blathering, incoherent boob.
Is anybody going to get this - ever!?
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