Sponsor (Nov 1948-June 1949)

rhese arc not necessarilj the hours during which radio reaches its greatest audiences, hut hours during which, according to all TV reports, the \ i^ual medium is hitting on all tubes. The Nielsen Radio Index, which has recentl) extended it sen ice to be representative of the entire nation, as the Nielsen organization see it. currently reports further increases in radio listening. According to NRI, in January. 1947, the average hours ol listening per home per dav were 4.8. In January. 1949, reports Mel-en. listening in the same homes rose to 5. 1 hours per day. Because of the increase in the number of radio home-, this increase in number of hour spent with radio means (according to NRI figures adjusted to the current number of radio homes) that the broadcast advertiser is "the beneficiarv of an increase of 21'r in the total home hours of radio listening.' NRI's figure for cost-per-thousand homes reached by the average network broadcast has dropped from $1.89 in January, 1947, to $1.68 in January, I'M'). Nielsen also stresses, in the current report he is making to advertising agencies, the fact that radio, unlike most other advertising media, is not static — that the audience an advertiser reaches this week is not 100' J the same as the audience he reaches with his next broadcast. For a specific program, he reports a single broadcast reached an audience of 12.5 % which heard 2.5 commercials. This 30-minute evening program however reached 27.8' < of the radio homes during a four-week period. The cumulative audience heard on an average ol 4.9 commercials during the four-week period. This audience-turnover factor i not present with black-and-white advertising, which reaches for the most part the same audience week after week, even though the publication IS one that i sold piimarilv on the newsstands. One of the reasons win daytime serials are so effective is also the audieni e turnover. Nielsen icpoit that one soap opera which he rates as 8.1 for a single broadcast reached 31.2$ of the radio home during a month I 20 broadcasts). On the one airing, the ivei age listenei heard 1 .8 commercials. ( tn the 20-broad< asl basis, the average housewife heard 9.7 commercials. Pra< tii all) all radio research on the hi oadcasl audience i home resean h. It is also generally (except for Nielsen I one-set-per-hoine research. This underestimates actual listening. \ nr<nt survey conducted by Pulse of New York for WNEW produced the first set of figures indicative of outof-the-home listening. The sample was small, and neither Dr. Roslow. head of Pulse, nor W NEW makes any worldshattering claims for the study. Out of a sample of 1.000, Pulse reported that 287. 28.7%, stated that thev listened to radio awav from home. Away-from-home listening Where Percent Visiting 32.0 Auto 29.8 Working 26.4 Outdoor (portable radios) 1.0 Restaurants, bars 9.7 Retail stores 7.3 Clubs, schools 1.4 The number of outdoor listeners is low because this survey was made during a month (March, 1949) in which warm days were at a minimum. A further study will be made during the siimmei which will no doubt confirm the findings of W OR and other studies which were reported in sponsor's Summer Selling 1 9 May) issue. The figures of "at work" audience are interesting. The listen-while-youwork audience has not been checked previously. WNEW's interest in "away from-home listening" is like the interest of all independent stations in this audience, based upon the fact that nonnetwork station programing of music and news is tailored for the vagrant ear. It's a vital audience, an earning and spending audience. The FM audience is also bigger than indicated in most surveys. Over 55% of the 13.3 FM-equipped homes in the New York area use their FM sets at least once a week (Pulse). As baseball becomes more and more important, that FM figure will go up and up, since daytime radio sounds better in the summer on an FM set, especially in areas beset bv man-made static. In many other cities, the local FM stations are the onlv outlet over which good daytime signals carrying the baseball games are available. The composition of the broadcast audience is also changing. In the last live years, the average listener has added one year of education. Thai true of the total population of the U. S., and 01.2' | of the nation have radios. In 1940, 8.4$ of the I , S. was 607 1 years old. In 1050. this becomes 9.3' i . The over-75 group is increasing also. In 101(1 it was onlv 2' , of the nation' population; in L950 it will be 2.3%. This means the over-60 group will number 3,166.000 at the end of this year. This segment of the population has more leisure than the rest of the U. S. Its buying power is considerable also. These figures of the National Resources Planning Hoard are important to advertisers because little or no copy is being addressed to this group on or off the air. The broadcast audience is growing — is growing better educated — is growing older: the latter despite the upped birthrate since the end of World War II. To the increased radio audience has been added a new audience, the TV audience. The increase in radio homes, the uncovering of out-of-home listening, the increase in hours of listening all tend to make the recent predictions that T\ will pass radio in importance in five years seem at least far-fetched. \\ ith the competition of the v isual medium, radio is being forced to find out new things about its audience. \dv ei tisei w ith new fai I and figures — with now knowledge about who is hearing their commercials — will also have to re-evaluate the broadcast advertising medium. No part of it has started to shrink — vet. * * « THE UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE (Continued from page 2r> ) WSM carried four nurserv accounts on Grand Ole Opry. as well as on early-morning hillbilly shows. Three of the nurseries offered fruit trees at $4.95 each, the fourth a flower plant at $1. Total dollar volume for these four accounts was more than $350,000, of which SOO.000 was received bv the flower firm: the three other nurseries' total of better than $285,000 represented some 57,000 orders. Average cost on all the $4.95 nurserv offers iluiing the entire period was 66 cents per order, with one of the firms receiving during one month (January. 1948) such a volume of mail that the actual cost per order was only 22 cents. The If II I 1 Jamboree, on that Wheeling. W. Va.. station, has a lengthv list of satisfied local advertisers who stronglv attest to the continual pull of folk artist-. Jamboree, aired each Sat in -lav night for four hours before a live audience, and now in it Kith year, point to such mail records a one quarter-hour participa 5', SPONSOR