Here is the companion piece to “Slicing and dicing the radio audience,” which ran in this space two weeks ago on 3/4/13. This report takes the same underlying data on who listens to what on the radio, straight from the vast database of Prosper Insights & Analytics, and runs the programs from top to bottom so users can easily see the relative strengths and weaknesses of each program style.
As we mentioned before, you will not find standard radio programming terminology here, and that is on purpose. Prosper is measuring consumers, not PDs, so the program options focused on musical styles, not formatics. And since most people listen to more than one type of station, respondents were allowed to select as many as they wished.
More information about Prosper Insights & Analytics can be found here.
Overall popularity
As we noted last year, Rock may be facing challenges as a format, but it remains the most popular style of music that can be found on the radio – of course, there are many kinds of Rock. It is interesting to note that the percentage selecting Latin/Hispanic is significantly less than the Hispanic percentage of the overall population, suggesting that many in that ethnic group listen to other types of stations.
30.6% Rock (1)
27.5% Top 40/Pop (2)
26.3% Oldies (3)
24.8% Country (4)
23.8% R&B (5)
23.1% Hip-Hop (6)
19.7% Alternative (7)
16.5% News (8)
13.1% Religious (9)
12.7% Talk (10)
12.3% Jazz (11)
11.6% Classical (12)
11.1% Sports (13)
7.8% Latin/Hispanic (14)
7.3% Blues (15)
5.3% New Age (16)
Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics
Male
Sports is far and away the best kind of radio to use when you have a male-oriented product to sell. Blues and Rock are also good bets, while Religious and Top 40/Pop have the smallest percentage of males in the audience.
79.4% Sports (1)
60.5% Blues (2)
57.4% Rock (3)
56.9% Jazz (4)
56.5% Talk (5)
56.0% News (6)
54.4% Classical (7)
52.8% New Age (8)
51.8% Alternative (9)
48.5% Adults 18+
48.2% Hip-Hop (10)
47.0% Oldies (11)
45.7% Latin/Hispanic (12)
44.7% R&B (13)
40.0% Country (14)
38.6% Religious (15)
38.3% Top 40/Pop (16)
Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics
Female
This chart precisely turns the previous chart on its head – we will note again, as we did last year, our surprise at just how female-oriented the Country format is. The Hip-Hop audience comes closest to matching the male-female breakdown in the population as a whole.
61.7% Top 40/Pop (1)
61.4% Religious (2)
60.0% Country (3)
55.3% R&B (4)
54.3% Latin/Hispanic (5)
53.0% Oldies (6)
51.8% Hip-Hop (7)
51.5% Adults 18+
48.2% Alternative (8)
47.2% New Age (9)
45.6% Classical (10)
44.0% News (11)
43.5% Talk (12)
43.1% Jazz Talk (13)
42.6% Rock (14)
39.5% Blues (15)
20.6% Sports (16)
Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics
Age
It should come as no surprise that the oldest audience group is the one that listens to Oldies. News and Talk are not far behind. Alternative and Hip-Hop hold down the opposite end of the age spectrum.
50.5 Oldies (1)
49.4 News (2)
48.9 Talk (3)
47.9 Jazz (4)
47.7 Classical (5)
47.3 Country (6)
47.0 Blues (7)
46.9 Religious (8)
45.5 Adults 18+
44.3 Sports (9)
41.1 Rock (10)
40.7 New Age (11)
40.1 R&B (12)
38.7 Top 40/Pop (13)
38.1 Latin/Hispanic (14)
35.2 Alternative (15)
33.7 Hip-Hop (16)
Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics
Income
The three spoken word formats make it three for three at the top of the earnings chart, and are the only three to exceed $70K, which they all do with room to spare. Younger-skewing formats are among those that tend to populate the lower reaches of this chart.
$74,152 News (1)
$73,154 Sports (2)
$72,090 Talk (3)
$68,419 Jazz (4)
$67,261 Top 40/Pop (5)
$63,280 Adults 18+
$63,166 Classical (6)
$63,105 Blues (7)
$62,454 Rock (8)
$62,011 Oldies (9)
$61,512 Country (10)
$60,557 Religious (11)
$60,278 R&B (12)
$59,349 Alternative (13)
$58,669 New Age (14)
$57,446 Latin/Hispanic (15)
$56,836 Hip-Hop (16)
Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics
White/Caucasian
The Country audience is the least ethnically diverse of all radio program styles, with Rock some distance behind at #2. R&B is the least likely place to find a significant Caucasian audience.
85.9% Country (1)
79.2% Rock (2)
71.3% Classical (3)
71.1% Oldies (4)
70.2% Top 40/Pop (5)
69.7% Talk (6)
69.6% Alternative (7)
68.2% Adults 18+
68.2% New Age (8)
65.7% News (9)
64.9% Sports (10)
53.9% Blues (11)
53.0% Religious (12)
46.2% Latin/Hispanic (13)
43.7% Jazz (14)
41.0% Hip-Hop (15)
29.8% R&B (16)
Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics
Hispanic
You will find Hispanic listeners in every format group, and of course they make up the lion’s share of stations so programmed. Among English-language formats, they gravitate to young-skewing and ethnic Hip-Hop, and Alternative, another young-skewing format. Country and Religious are their least favorite styles.
83.3% Latin/Hispanic (1)
28.9% Hip-Hop (2)
28.1% Alternative (3)
25.2% New Age (4)
24.8% Top 40/Pop (5)
22.8% Classical (6)
21.7% R&B (7)
21.4% Rock (8)
19.4% Adults 18+
19.1% Blues (9)
18.9% Sports (10)
18.7% Oldies (11)
18.6% News (12)
18.3% Jazz (13)
16.4% Talk (14)
14.3% Country (15)
13.1% Religious (16)
Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics
African-American
Black artists are among the driving forces among the musicians putting out R&B, Jazz and Hip-Hop music, and it is no coincidence that they are the most popular formats among African-Americans. Religious is also very popular. Few in this group are found listening to either Rock or Country.
53.6% R&B (1)
43.8% Jazz (2)
38.0% Hip-Hop (3)
37.5% Religious (4)
32.8% Blues (5)
22.2% News (6)
21.7% Sports (7)
19.5% Talk (8)
19.3% Adults 18+
17.4% Oldies (9)
14.3% New Age (10)
13.7% Top 40/Pop (11)
13.3% Classical (12)
11.3% Alternative (13)
9.1% Latin/Hispanic (14)
6.6% Rock (15)
5.3% Country (16)
Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics
Multi-Racial
Among Americans who consider their ethnicity to include more than one race, Latin/Hispanic seems to be one of them – they gravitate to that type of programming in numbers almost three times their percentage of population as a whole.
8.8% Latin/Hispanic (1)
5.6% Alternative (2)
5.2% Hip-Hop (3)
4.8% Classical (4)
4.7% New Age (5)
4.3% R&B (6t)
4.3% Blues (6t)
4.2% Top 40/Pop (8)
4.1% Rock (9)
3.9% Jazz (10)
3.6% Sports (11)
3.5% News (12)
3.2% Talk (13)
3.1% Oldies (14)
3.0% Adults 18+ (13)
2.4% Religious (15)
2.0% Country (16)
Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics
Asian
It’s a tie between Top 40/Pop and Hip-Hop with it comes to radio programming for Asian Americans. They are not fond of Country, Hispanic or Oldies stations.
4.3% Top 40/Pop (1t)
4.3% Hip-Hop (1t)
3.8% Alternative (3t)
3.8% New Age (3t)
3.4% R&B (5)
3.1% Classical (6)
2.8% Sports (7)
2.7% Adults 18+
2.7% News (8)
2.4% Blues (9)
2.3% Jazz (10)
2.2% Rock (11)
1.8% Talk (12)
1.7% Religious (13)
1.5% Country (14t)
1.5% Latin/Hispanic (14t)
1.3% Oldies (16)
Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics
Native American
The Native American group, like those who consider themselves to be multi-racial, tend to head for Latin/Hispanic stations. The percentage is better than twice their presence in the population, and the format has a huge lead over any other.
1.8% Latin/Hispanic (1)
1.1% Alternative (2t)
1.1% New Age (2t)
1.0% Rock (4t)
1.0% Oldies (4t)
1.0% Country (4t)
1.0% Hip-Hop (4t)
0.9% Blues (8)
0.8% Adults 18+
0.8% R&B (9t)
0.8% Talk (9t)
0.8% Classical (9t)
0.7% Top 40/Pop (12t)
0.7% Jazz (12t)
0.6% News (14t)
0.6% Religious (14t)
0.6% Sports (14t)
Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics
Other race/ethnicity
Here we have a group for which the more specific ethnic terms used in this study do not apply for one reason or another, but we can safely assume that there is a strong Hispanic strain in there somewhere, based on the huge popularity of that style of radio programming. Hip-Hop is a distant 2nd, and Country is down at the bottom of the list.
32.6% Latin/Hispanic (1)
10.6% Hip-Hop (2)
8.4% Alternative (3)
8.2% R&B (4)
7.8% New Age (5)
6.9% Top 40/Pop (6)
6.8% Rock (7)
6.6% Classical (8)
6.4% Sports (9)
6.1% Oldies (10)
5.9% Adults 18+
5.6% Jazz (11t)
5.6% Blues (11t)
5.2% News (13)
5.0% Talk (14)
4.7% Religious (15)
4.2% Country (16)
Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics
