Study Shows Digital Boom Causing Radio’s Demise

A new Bridge Research study directly fingers the digital boom for most of broadcast radio’s woes.  In very stark terms the study found that:

• AM/FM radio listening among 18-34 year olds was significantly off fourth quarter 2005’s pace as its increase in weekly quarter hours to "other media" than radio jumped from 50 to 60 quarter hours...

• Terrestrial audience erosion to alternative audio entertainment continues to occur in young demographics.

• Podcasting is beginning to siphon listening.
• MP3 device usage can consume as much as 80% of a radio user’s audio entertainment during initial ownership weeks and months. This number tends to be generally lower among 30+ women and 35+ men.

• MP3 player fatigue is slowing overall as the market continues to expand due to consumer interest in these devices…

• Competition for traditional radio time-spent-listening is more severe. Time spent listening to terrestrial radio is fighting for its share of time with a multitude of digital devices… The most often given reason for this …better programming and new shows. Meanwhile, music-specific radio stations are vying for the attention of their constituencies as MP3 players continue to be more pervasive than ever (75 million sold). Podcasting is beginning to show evidence of cannibalizing radio’s time-spent-listening.

• Satellite radio also suffers from attrition!… According to our panel, during the second quarter of 2005 average time spent listening to satellite radio was 16 hours per week. During this most recent study during the period of January 1 through March 31, 2006, weekly TSL for satellite radio among subscribers of 6 months or longer was down to 12.6 weekly hours,

Summary and anaylis above from and Bridge Research press release and  Kurt Hanson’s Radio And Internet Newsletter.