ED 150 755
AUTROR hull am T. , And Cthers TITLE Audiences for Contemporary Radio Pat-a FOB DATE Apr 78 NQTI 27p.. Paper presented at the Annual Meetingof t- -Intermati9nalCommunicatiam Association" Chicago 1S7-8)
.EDT$ TRICE NFF7$0083 -$O.83 11C7$2.06' Plus postage. DESCP6 *L stening- Groups -Mao Medih basic News. Bepor *Radio ;. Sampling; *Statistical Surveys IDENTIFIERS *Audience
ABSTRACT A radio audience survey of 110 sample-geographic clusters in the Santa,Rarbara, California, areaserved a twcfo d purpose: the construction of ademographic profile-of audience 'types according to radio format choices, and theidentificaticn and analysis of various audience subgroups. A skipinterval technique of these geographic clusters resulted in 523 inhcneinterviews where partiaipants were asked' their preferences cf Si2 radio formats: tpp forty, beautiful music, middle of the road(light rock, ballads, and news) ,live prcgressive rock, automated rock, and all news.Format, choices were then analyzed -according tc the demographicvariables, sex, age, marital status, education,geographic stability, dwelling type, and residence ownership. Resultsindicated that persuaders and informers who use radio can use-demographic distinctnessto select anC appropriate.format forVihe target audience and stations with distinct audiences can predict tEat their prograving is reaching aselected subgroup, that many subjects who named a topforty statics as their favorite were past their teenageyears,that nearly half of those with a four year college education indicated apreference far beautiful music and news, and that listeners ofrock stations were more likely to -call the station. (UAI)
**4 ******* ** *** * ** ** * * * ***** Raprbductions supplied by ED BS are the best that be made from the original document U.S. DEPARTMENT OVNEALTN, EOOCAtIONI wELFAqg NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRO. OUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM - T HE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGIN - APING IT FONTS OF viEWCIP OPiNFONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY. REPRE- SENT OFFICiALCIATIONAL INSTITUTE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY
By
es T. Lull si ant Professor pa ment of Speech niversity ofCalifornia- arbara,California93;06
awrence M. Johnson Piagram Director. ea Broadcasting Corporation 1216 State Street Barbara,, California 93101
Carol E. Sweeny Depar,rment of Speech University of California Santa Barbara-, California 9310
'PERMISSION TO RBRRODUGE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTEE-) BY a es T. Lull
TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
I ORMATION CENTER (EPIC) AND.. LyERS OF THE ERIC SYSTEM.-
Presented to the Masstourcation Divibion o International CommunicationAas cia tion. Chicago, Illinois,-Apri4 1978
1 Analyses 9fred ship conducted by comae_
consider -only the,m&st rudiuenry demographics. Redid
ditionally have,been primarily concerned with this basic information.,Bits
has become= more ape ized in middle-sized and-major markets there has devalopad
a need for more telling probes into the ture,of the diversified audience.'
There several recent scholarly zstigations'in th.ia area. 'Samu
Car -And Ruggela gathered.dat- which challenged the preVioUely-heI
that highly educated people do met'use broadcast media as much h.s their leas
educated peers.-Their survey of 20 California malesrevealed that when the
time reported as spent,with media was adjusted for vocational' role involvement,
there remained A positive correlatfou between education and mediause, in/
eluding radio., The amount of time p t with radio was greatest amonge po d-
. eats who had completed hi h'school or attended soma college.
Al ter Bogart support the "high school: peak" notion
education level of radio listenere, r=least for white audience memb
This study alsorevealed that radio listening declined significantly
adults over 50 years.old. Older teenegerd have been found to liste ra,
more-then younger teens, and,'at this' age, girls listened, more than boys. 3
17urther, at least 15 percent. of the 'entire radio audience is composed of,t-
1 Age'listene andDominick haveshownthat white children listen children. ,- \ have attempted to be and explain
ncluding personalitylife-yle, and mmunicatiOn
ent and dependen free in their research sips.
ied subjects who fit the criteria his,
ategory st radiolisteners.5 Massy foldthat
Ildi4idualtsm" oMbitted with certain demographics helped explain
ai.n radio stations. Ruffner fact analYr d female pro
do listeners end foundthem to cohere in p tterns of listen
functions medium ?fodes. imilarly, Troldahl
ix factors w accounted fart muchof the variancevaria.6cfaith, 9 which radio s for its audienc sr
tudie d the radio,
smuts dio listeners select from aw:
formats, a de, d study the medium s various
nt res,ear aacr lysis o of th pertictgar audiences of
ran -to. In order gathe _ion abo t the radio preferences and
audience members extensive vey of a Tadi marketwas undertalcen
inan rbara if o Where solve
out 20 000 p Uowever, due to,th close proximity hf Los
Angeles d othatauthor i Several other stations are
clearly the market. The nt fiber of a iswhich can be received 1,-;
-.aurathe rating the range popular contemporary radio formats.
The research is to ormation given by iistciiers
arde to constrict e demoaraphic profile of audience types by radio
Thet), byusing multiple discriminate enalyals, a compact mulivaria ethod, wa helldemona trat-e th telti- power of seve important d graphic 4. werisblesin separating audience (Dupe. Finally, we will show the ve d ices for sever
audiences. A)ur c to document the clear_o of lis to rs in general, but to comparative_ analysis of 1 who Ladle pr or the station
der to do this, subjects' verbalized prefer time which
re received in Sai to Barbara have been condensedTito groups h represen:t six common contemporary formats. _the wed r formats rib haracte la, and most radio markets, are.
S22(5a. Stations which play the popular records andorienttheir airj.sound to theyounr demographicdemographics Sbori songe aid egated disc. jockeys Gh racterice the format.
autif Easy listening, background music station whit ular ballads and lush instrumentals little or no new ented.
lu.dat of the Voac4Stations which play the Iight'rocit and roil songs, ballads, "oldies," and feature mere,public affairs_
Li Stations which feature extended play album seta, and live announcing by the disc' jcplosys. from blues Jazz, 'folk, to bard rock and roll.
which play extended tracks fro i rock b but feature live announcers. Music back-anneunced on pre - recorded tape. Little news or public affairs is present
'sports,
od
Randomlyspl 43 Were drat in thepop from cans= t lied by the Santa arbara Planning
tho masterlist ens cts t 110 saopla ctstara
were selected. usin g the erval t These u tors each H represented ane city block bich c 0 the population
of interest. vhoiiaeho de were .contac.4 in each clutter, and one member S of t io. houaghoid ti ntervieuadin each dwelling.. The p ccted sample size.
`4, --050 provided more than au. -icnt predision purposes ofthis ',survey
(5% tolerated error in 98 samOles in',100). This degree of precision emcee
tie sampling demands made-by commercial research agencies, Pulse -and Arbiton,
for the Santa Barbara market. Whenincomplete questionnaires were later
elimi -tod from 'the sample, the number of Interviews analyzed urns 523. NearIY
equal numbers of men and woman einterviewed.
Interviewers were graduate and undergraduate communication students sat the
University of 'California, Santa Barbara, who were trained by theresearchers.
EaChZin-home interview lasted approximately 45 minutes during which time 98
questions were asked of each respondent.This paper is limite adiscussion ,
a subset of these variables.-
Re suits
1/fASSZaPhics
A brief description of the findings for the various,demdraphic indices
is . presented below. The reader should consult Table I forr complete documen_a°'
tien of the percentagesor each radio format.
Sex: Tao redid formats emerge with particular appeal to one sex more
than the other. Top Forty stations have May morel femalsi among their listeners
- Table I about her
les and Live Frog= sive Rock stations hav manypore male listeners than
female. To a lesser degree, males outnumber Bales among listeners of
Automated Rock stations. Other formats have nearly equal attraction to men and
WOM2rio
is variable reveal contrLing concen -atio s of,lieteners among
various age groupings. The Live Pctg resaive format counts nearly 80% of its
audience in the_113-34 range, with than'oliethird of its listeners reported to be 25-34 yea old. The Automated Rock format has a ttr
tion a listeners (ne y 63) in the narrow rangeof 18-24 years. rhn
Middle of Road format has. no particular concentration of listeners in age group. The majority of listeners for the Beautiful. Music format ra0 agefrom 35-65i while the All News listeners are a little older. Teenageta:
comprise about one - third of the-total audience for Top Forty stations.
Maqtal Status: 'This variable is a good predictor of fo preference.
Clearly,'radio listeners likely to he married are those Prefer
News or Beautiful Music radio formats. Least likely to be ed- are Aute4.- mated Rock or Live ProgreisiVe Rack Listeners.
Educati Clear differences show hp here too. High -education-is a
aracterist of. the Beautiful Music, Live Progressive Rock and All Nowa
°graphic Stability: Listeners of the A.l News format are by far most
geographically Stable gip what this concept can be defined as whether o a dhangd of residence has been made by the subject during the,past two years
Listeners of:Beautiful 14usic, Top Forty Middle, of the Road stationsare also comparatively stable. The young adult audiences .of the Live Progressive
Rock and Automated Rodk stations are least likely to have remained in one location for the two year period which preceded the collection of data.
EtaellingType: Again, All Neu ligteners emerge at the extrema. Top
Forty listeners c1ere also very likely to live in home.' Live Frogreesive
Rock-end Automated Rock listeners: were least likely to live in a house.'
Residdn s t _ershim The similarity among: All News listeners and, Beautiful
Music Listeners is true of thisvariable too. They are the most likely to OWD their own places of re dance. Live Progressive Rock 1 steners were least likely to awn. e ho on asked if they had ephoned theirfavorite
radi station -glaring the past year measure ofaudience'parttepation in
the station activities), most res °admits said that they had no Least likely
to,Call the station for on were listeners of-Beahtiful Music,All News,
fiddle of the.Boad,stations. The most frequent station callers wereliste
of the Live Porgkessive Rock format. Even Top Forty stations, were net-: likely
as the Live BrogreSsive Rock stations to receive phonecalla from mamy of
stern were most-, zufit_erSaibscritiNexoti:. All News-and Beautiful Music
likely to subscribe-to a daily newspaper, Live Progressive listeners were
least likely to do so, with the other formats ranging between theseIxtremis.
AdditiOnal analysis of newspaper readekship patterns indicated thatabout rL f ulrfifths of the BeaUtifnl'Mhsic aid All News lste_ read a newsp
4 :sevendaysa week, While only one,third of the LiveP-o sive Rock listeners
do so.
azine _Subscription: Beautiful Mu.ic, All Neiga, and Middle of the Road
listeners were the most frequent subscribers to magazines. About half 'the sample
in the other forms reported that they subscribe at least one magazine.
Mu..linant Analysis
The percentages reported in the previous section provide areference for
identifying the distinguishing characteristics of listeners of.vIOUs radio for-
.4 But it is also of interes to. learn which demographic indicesprovide the I information in differentiating types of listeners for the formats.Further.
howdemographically unique is the audience for each fo Lt? These are empirical 12 issues hich can be addressed with multiple discriminant analysis. ith this ach, audience- subgroup enA:lership is predicted:foreach,
ation-of all"the relevantnpUedata. Subgroup means,
micas and covariances are. useciratto deveLop'a_priori demographic pro-
of i<~es for each radio format. This is accomplished by considering thd array demmgraphic variables for all persoms who can name a preferredradto,atation.'
DemogrephIcs considered in ,th Ay are, sex, age, marital stAtils, education
_ . geographic stability, dwelling ere's and residence:ownership. After the format profiles are created, individual subjects are considered fotAnclusion-ineach cif the format categories. The subject is placed into the categOry which )best matches his or bet awn demographic constitution.When the overall degree of accuracy in this placement is high, distinct, demographically predictableaudience'group is identified. this analysis the discrimtrAnt-problem was to define,eix populatia: of individuals (the format preferences) as they are identified from sevendemo-. graphic variables. The critical discriminating variables Vbrethereby identified and the relative distinctness of each or format becameICES-
The Discriminant Functions
Iao sipficant discriminantfunctions emerged (Table II). Each charac- terized by a particularly powerful demographic variable The most meaningful, format discrimination was made -lth:age as -the primary component. To a far
Table II about here lesser degrees residence a*:ersl ip, geographie.otability, and marital status. con- tributml.information to the first function. second function somewhat more ambiguous Education was the discriminating variable here,with geographic stability, dwellimg type, sex, sn 3 age of secondary importance in separating the groups ten this function. ile three other functions were identified, the first ?-11 trio functions combined to ado ©unt from for more than 97 percent ofthe inter- group-variability., itis
m 'format
h40 been tivation par-
fly' each tormat as each of tilt tic platted ul Nuoi.c irilig4Te I. leer tbfat k calt%lbated he first
hen.
aridand Live
d function.
SqUa 414$ ;moo
to a'11 t aotnetga ©f and-c,as for
It prov1,40 a eastsre cf die-i -
tl a diagonal oftha'mattix ludieatecorn
ohed widi demographic cbqz
diagonal raw entr ee repraetnt tAGotTect C1406ificat iv
nta the probability fatau01. furalsk th 44 format audience iltbqgo aIwagiaed %Don dap ind ual are compared wth Ichooh atIdtavecrIbar, -ra of the format.
Format Profiles
Three formats
distinct audien is that for t1AlNowa
format listemere also comOris
other relatively diatinot.40dteriCc
ference for the TOO Forty fOtRtat+
Road format, and Autonatid Shalc,to
audien
dettirmine the reCi
diande-pubgroup 514
particular group are md. _
group are recipioaaily,miaolaea
an index of-comparative subgF up ou
indicateth'edirection of. mdeclasWic t1.01l
diagonals ch row Of,-Table LV. fitare Rock and Autoiated Rock audieh tUcatlohe Jorty_and.Antomated Rock en a-are'ilso mlaclassified iprocally is.
listeners of the Beautiful Music and A4j New Formats.. Relatioeshipe , . are -,.
l4, among.other,fotmata are, not so wear.
Dis0ussioa
The am unt of donographicsdi tinctness or uni4 e ed by radio
formats.has implications'for.persuaders and imfornerswho use radio to reach
theirdintended audiences. The highly distinct audiencegroups-W-1. News4
Live Progressive Rock 'Top'Forty) are moreefficient In the disseminationof of inforMation to specific "target audiences.' Advertisers and the creators
public service messages can usethis knowledge when they select among 1 7 var=ious foreats for trenamission of theirmessages . _f course, when the appeal
is-.a general one, exclusive use of a highly.distiact.format should perhaps be.
avoided. radio program- emo raphicdistinCtness is an important coasideration for
mars too. Stations withCaistinctaudiances maybe mall fd that their program to be a ring: is reaching a selected demographic subgroup. This is,likel r
'- La smaller markets, however,,the program- desire!, e situation in large merkets... increase overall- mar may.. desire to broadenthe deMagraphic'base in order to
audience size. The d sirebility,of.formetdistinctness, therefore, i_
affected by marhet- aize and the numberof. competing stations with the same
foriat operating in the listening area.As dercenstrated in this research,
the fundamental demographic criteria fordetern d.ning format disticetnesa are
age and edUcation.
a Mayor objective of this r ch wee togen a, mare elaborate and
exact description Hof - audience!characteristics of c ritempo radio formats,
the nature of than c as previously available. Many traditional_ beliefs of Some racii a' subaudiences were confirmed and Made precaL inthis, study. '11
however, were also apparent.
nstance, the stereotype that Top Forty listeners are mainly _teenagers
:;upported by thedata. Most subjects who named a Top Forty station
As their favorite were past their teenage years,Nearly half of them were
married and more than half owned their homes. Apparently, many of today's
Top Fortyrli teners-are yo aduits who we exposed to this format during
their teenage years and have maintained interest in the type of music played by these stations and the manner in vhich it is presented. Very few Top_
Forty audience members were highly educated, so listeners of this format appear
to- be mainly working clase young adults.' \r-
Interesting differences surfaced when the formats which attract the better educated listeners were examined.Nearly half of the subjects who Said they preferred a Beautiful Music format station reported that they had at least a four-year college education. Beautifulsic stations air what can best. be ' described-ss-backgroi d music. These stations are not information ,oriented.
Beautiful Music listeners apparently receive their newand information elseT 15 where and employ radio for baCkgrottnd listening purposes. Another format with a high concentration of college graduates g its listeners is All
Newa.., contrary to Beautiful music stations, programming on this format suggests that these listeners epeeificsny use radio for information. The other format lith a high education level is Live Progressive Rock, stations which typically attempt to involve their listeners in political, environmental, and soclo-entertainmsnt issues and activities. They often broadcast "alter- native" news and public affairs programming.
Listeners of these =three formats are also at the extremes on the ones- sure of audience-station interaction. BeaUtiful Music and All News listen- ens were extremely unlikely to cell dh_ r favorite stations for any 12
1NUMOnd 0 -course,-these- are olderthanthose forotherforaaLs. 6 0 But the type of'programMIng transmitted by Bea tiful Music and All News statione May:also-cOntribute to the phenomena Beautiful Music stations
ill of.music", Whereby an unobtrusive stream of melodieavis presented
Similarly,'All Newsstations'tationbroadcast a "Wall of information" each day. Predictability ofprogram content and style of presenta- tion may create a sense bf distance between the sources and receivers of these programs and massages. regressive Rock stations have the most active. listeners by this measur2. Many of these stations serve as a kind ofcom- munity s witchboard" for the young= adult community where they broadcast. The informal style of these stations may also. encourage listeners to call the-disc Jocksy.. u Mile this study was conducted in a single location, the formats which are considered can-be found in most fa4.rly large,media markets in the coudtry Although geographic difference_ are likely to reflect sole dissimi-
, I laxities is the types of audience members who listen to the various fermata, there is no reason to believe that the essential demographic profiles and analyses presented here misrepresent pattern- of radio listenershipAn other cities. Temporal differences are more likely to inter__ with the validity of these data. Although comparable historical data does not exist and there- fore inhibits direct comparison, listeners to.some of the contemporary radio formats are not likely to closely resemble the format' demographic con-
itution ox fifteen years ago. Radio formats appear and disappear frith
ges in music and other cultural ipfluences.Some cohorts of listeners apparently settle on a fqrmat preference and continue to listen as they grow older. Thera is, :therefore, good reason to predict that the demographic statue of radio listeners will be redistributed in the futur_ The dynamic nature of the radium requires periodic assessment and analysis of itd many audiences. 51 13
Notes
rrill Samuels Richard F. Carter and Lee Ruggels, "Education, Available
Time, and Use of glass Media," Journalism Quarterly 40: 491-496(Autumn&1963).
2 Leo Bogart, "Negro and White Media Exposure: New Evidence," Journalism
uarterly 49: 15-21 (Spring 1972).
Edward PapaZian,"Teenagers. and Broadcast N3dia," edia/Scope 11:
109-'115 (Dec. 1967). 4_ Neal T. Weintraub, "Soma Meanings Radio Has ForTeenagers,"'Journsl of
Broadcasting 15: 147-152 (Spring 1971).
-BradleyS. Greenberg and Joseph R.- Dominick, "Racial andSocial Class
Diff rences in Teen-Agers Use of Television," Journal of,Broadcasting 13:
- 331 -344 (Fall 1969).
6 Joseph T. Plummer, "Life Style Pattern A New Cons tra Mass
Communications Research ,Journal of Broadcasting.16: 79-89 (Winer 1971-72).
7William F. Massy; "Discriminant Analysis of AudienceCharacteristics,"
Journal of Advertising Research 5: 39-48 (1965).
-Marguerite Anne Ruffner, "Women's Attitudes To andProgressive Rock
Radio," Journalof_Broadcasting 17: 85-94 (Winter, 1972-73).
9Ve ling C. Troldahl and Roger Skolnick,"The Meanings People Have for
Radio Today,'" Journal of Broadcasting 12: 57-67 (Winter1967,-68).
10_ . SOU2 respo sntioned stations which represent formats such as
Country -4'Iestern, Soul, Jazz, Classical, and Spanish-speaking. None of thqse categories attained a sample size of 20, however, thecriterion for entry into
the analysis.-
11-Se- Charles H. Backstrom and raid D. Hursh, Suryey Research (Evanston,
Illinois. Northwestern University Press, 1963). 14
Thnra are y advantages tozultipla discriminant analysis (MDA) and the
reeu trin for research problems like the one considered in this
pape ind cos which can be quantified,even nominally, can be used as
audience profile date. Because DA is a multivariate statistical
Interrelationships betue lanatory variables are taken into ad
atiottrally, t it multiple gression. Finally, reporting of the
di:sorb:bin= ticn icients, group centr ids for criterion variables,
and' tbe confusion matrix can be done ina compact rtes which facilitate
easy interpretation. For an excellent introduction to this method, see William
F. M s "Di oriminant Analysis of Audience Characteristic_ "jdurftaipf AdVart Ang_Basearch 5: 39-48 (1965).
131norder to solve' the discriminant problem, the Variables must be approxi-
ly normally distributed in each population, their respective variance and
covariance Matrices must be about equal, and 2_2519A probabilities for member-
ship in each format group must be known.Typical statistical packages, such as
SPSS, provide methods for satisfying this assumption whena priori probabili-
ties are known to be unequal. In this study, equal a priori probabilities were assumad for group membership in any of the sin format preference groups.
Since some audiende meMbers could not state a preference, or selected a
station which did not fit utthin the-paramsters of the ,formats considered,
the °ample size was reduced to 414. 14 O -nly one arras originates from Al]_ News format since there was a
ee-tway tie for secondclosest association with this audience group.' 15 seems evident by their high rate of subscription to newspapers s magazines. Sae Table I. TABLE I
Radio Format ?re erenee by Demographic Indlee0
SEX. MUT PIEPERENCE MARITAL Male Female Married Single Other
BEALTIFUL, MUSIC
(n = 80)
MIDDIE ROAD
(n 53)
N t 414 u Cell entries are percentages which have cen i rounded to nearestone peroento 'TABLE 1 (Cont'd)
Radio Format Preferenceby Demographic ndluust :.
DUELLING H NE TA ION House Apa met
40MATED ROCK
n = 'TABLE I -
Radio Format Pre nce by .Demo raptite Indices
NEWSPAPER.NIAOAZINE, FO/TIAT PREFERENCE ea 110 ye6 no
TOP FORTY- (n 99)
BEAUTIFUL MUST (n :280)
, .. \ki IDDLE ROAD (n c .53)*
)1:-. LIVE POO BO'l
: (n 112) ,
-AUT0111.ATED ROCS 115)
ALL 'NEWS
S. c25)
6 Table
to dndized Discriminant Function _ fici n
DEYDGRAPHIO VARIABLE FUNCTION 1 TUNCTION'2
SEM -.24
20
MARITALSTATt;g; . X14 . 08
EDUCATION .07 . 64
GEO STABILITY .17 .28
DWELLING TYPE mX3 .27
RESIDENT OWNERSHIP 19 if
eigenvaluel ;25
Canonical corral o:
Chidquare 285.8 96.53 df 35 24
P .001 .001 Table 111 p Po =at Group Centro ids
FUNCTION 2 FO iA- (EDUCATION DOMINANT)
TOP FORTY 21 Mint .85 .25
EIDDLE OF TEE ROAD .46 .04
LIVE PROGRES Sin ROCK 59 .44
AUTOrs-MED ROOK 62 .07 1 NEtis 1.14 .07 Me as cl gdupetfoit
5urstion 2 (ducation bofilinant) Top Forts, LIOD PPAO FIVCR Matax to 5evn Variables , NDm q 001010h 4014 Equal frobabilit1W
Plva ed Group Wership
Actual, Au tomated All up .E Dr cases TO 0011 Miadle ot DiveFr.o- igressive k Roiek News Membership I 'hehad 'Port' u
OP FORTY. . 101 5.11Z
21 .BEAD TIFUL
4U$I
52 15g 1ID bE4F. THE ROAD
DIVE 114' PROGRESSIVE TOO
F AUTI Tp 45 4 ROB
All NEWS. 2:6 ,
ALL pREFERVICE 104
8U WPlNi 1 O. ' 1iO N L. 523 Pence gt of grouped QA.5e
perceotages roundeol to heabOt VtleDkilc
n Figure II Format Reciprocity
Middle of the Road Live -Beautiful Progressive Music; Rock
Autemated Ndws Rock
Top Forty