U. S. Radio (Jan-Dec 1959)

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LISTENER LOYALTY PROVES THAT... Radio Has The ^Difference' Radio is perhaps the most democratic of all media. Market by market, the choice in listening fare — and the competition for audience — makes rival local media look like a family circle meeting. Agency brass maintain that, to them at least, radio sounds the same (see lead story, p. 23). However, listeners (remember them?) give every indication that radio fulfills the French ideal of vive la difference. A relatively new area of radio research— the study of duplication in audience among stations in the same market— shows that whether in regard to the selection of music, the coverage and presentation of news, production and promotion techniques, or variety programming, the listener is aware of the "difference" in sound. The term duplication merely refers to the extent of overlap in homes reached by the competing stations. What these studies show is that the radio listener is essentially loyal to one or possibly two stations. Therefore, if an advertiser's main job is to reach as many different people as possible, two or more stations in a market are necessary. In a study conducted for Meeker Co. and its represented station in Seattle, KXA, A. C. Nielsen Co. figrres show that duplication in audience between stations of different programming is inconsequential. And, surprisingly, the duplication between audiences of similarly programmed stations is minimal. For example, the duplication in weekly audience between the good music station and the leading top 40 station at the time of the survey was only 1.7 percent of the total combined cumulative audience of the two. The duplication between stations of similar programming — in this case, two top 40 stations — reached a relatively low 6.3 percent. According to Lucian Chimene, director of station relations for J. Walter Thompson Co., New York, "This study confirms what we have lelt for some time. If you want to pyramid your unduplicated audience, you need more than one station in a market. "Of course," Mr. Chimene continues, "a lot depends upon the product and the situation. But if you want to reach large numbers of different people at the same time, this approach would be most desirable." As an example, Mr. Chimene cites a subject of current interest at his agency — the introduction of new Ford cars. The Meeker-KXA study evolved from a pilot survey conducted in October 1958, using the MarchApril 1958 Nielsen report. At that time, it was found that the degree of duplication was minimal between the station (a good music 38 5. RADIO • November 1959