Sponsor (July-Dec 1951)

\s for the age classifications into which the after-midnight audience falls, here are the results of the WNEW-Pulse report on this subject: Entire Post-Midnight Radio Audience in New Fork Age , of total 13-19 years 6.8<3 20-29 years 19.69! 30-44 years I 1.5% 4.") years & over 12!). 1% Total H)il. I'', Mi dun Age is 38 years. Note: In tliis median, halt' the audience is 38 years or over, the other half 38 and under. An ivei ;>-<• would lie distorting. From an advertiser's viewpoint, you can see the pattern that is beginning to emerge. The after-midnight radio audience in New York is still mostly a masculine one. but in a six-to-four ratio with women. It's an adult audience, with over nine out of ten people being aged 20 years and up. What do these New Yorkers do for a living? Certainly, the audience includes such stay-up-laters as chorus girls, bartenders, musicians, firemen, students, and retired millionaires. But. they're a long way from making up the bulk of the post-midnight dialers. The two largest groups are made up of housewives I who rank No. 1 I and clerical and sales workers ( stenos, office workers, salesmen, retail clerks, etc. who rank No. 2). Together these two groups add up to 45'/' of the entire audience. Add to this the manual workers I skilled and unskilled labor, carpenters, garage-men. etc., who rank No. 3) and you'll find that some 60% of the audience is a fairly-normal evening adult (see chart on page 27) audience. With this kind of audience composition making up the post-midnight dialers, you might suspect that most of the radio listening in New York's wee, small hours is done at home. You'd be right. Also, you might figure that the audience, being mostly housewives, salaried people and wage earners, would stay put in one place. Again, you'd be right. On an average night, the share of unduplicated listener-families tuning to radio at home is S6.5f/c ; out-ofhome it's 13.1 ' i ; and for the few who listen part of the night at home and part a\-,a\ it's 0.4' < . These figures do not change much over the period of a "Advertising is not an overnight job. One large food advertiser spent $75,000 a year in the New York market for five years before he began to show a profit on the advertising investment. There is no short-eut to consumer acceptance. The merchandise . . . has to be advertised today, tomorrow, next montb. and next year." BEN DUFFY President, BBDO. In his book "Profitable Advertising in Today's Media and Markets" week, although there is some increase in the in-and-out-of-homes share. Still, it would be wise for the advertiser using after-midnight radio in New l ork to remember that he's selling primarily to an audience that is at home, not away. Now, how big is the New York audience, and when does it listen? In New ^ hi k's met i opolitan area, according to the WNEW-Pulse findings, some 23' V of the total families — that's nearly one out of four — tune to radio sometime between midnight and 6:00 a.m. This gives an average nightly audience of 1,333.200 listeners. Since different people listen on different nights, the pattern changes over a week's time. During a week, some Bi$ Buy Itt Kiio.vriffW Not the biggest station, hut the BIG BUl in cost per thousand homes reached in Knoxville's "golden eircle" . . . the* industrial metropolitan area of 335,000 people. Cover this compart market with WBIK AM and FM, both for the price of one. The Boiling Company 38.4' ( of the families in the New York area — a weekly total of 2.225,900 people — tune in their radios after midnight, according to the survey. Listening, the findings showed, takes a jump upward in New York and New Jersey in the 11:45 p.m. to midnight quarter-hour, then slowly starts edging downward. The pre-midnight jump, due to new tune-ins, is an increase of some 18.5%. At midnight, week-long averages in the WNEW-Pulse study show, some 12.8'v of the area's homes are using radio, and at least 15 AM and FM radio stations are on the air (including WNEW and its highly-successful Milkman's Matinee with Art Ford). Other choices of programs range from the breezy controversial chatter sessions of Barry Gray on WMCA, Symphony Sid and the latest in "bop" records on WJZ. and the feminine tones of Bea Kalmus on WMGM to the quiet strains of the Symphonic Hour on WEVD. From the midnight peak, listening begins to slide downward, and stations start dropping out of the listener sweepstakes. Here's how the pattern develops in the WNEW-Pulse findings. Sets tn-Vsi Tri nd Aftei Midnight In New Tori Oity # Has. on 1") Time Midnight-12:15 a.m 12:15-12:30 a.m. 12:30-12:45 a.m, 12:45-1 a.m. 1-1:15 a.m. l ]."> l :30 a.m. i :30 l :45 a.m. 1:45-2 a.m. 2-3 a.m. 3-4 a.m. 4 "> a.m. 5-6 a.m 15 15 15 10 Sets in -use 12.8 L2.3 10.2 9.7 6.1 5.5 5.1 4.8 2.1 1.1 .7 Note: The seisin use figure is actually "Homes using radio," but includes both at home and out of home listening. Not shown in the WNEW-Pulse study, or in its conclusions, is whether or not listening drops off because stations are going off the air, or whether stations go off the air because listening drops off. However, Nielsen figures for several years back, plus other Pulse < itv studies. Hooper figures, etc. lend to show that there would still be the same decline, even if all the stations ditl stav on. This is caused partly by strong program loyalties after midnight (turning the set off when the program is over I plus a plain old desin* to go to sleep. This post-midnight pattern is repealed, with lower sets-in-use figures although in the approximate ratio, in other cities and in the nation as a whole. A Pulse survey made last year in Chicago for WBBM is a good example. 74 SPONSOR