STUDY: 'LESS IS MORE' YET TO IMPACT RADIO LISTENERS Radio and Records According to research conducted last month by The Benchmark Company, radio listeners have yet to notice any indication of reduced spotloads on their favorite radio stations. Of the nearly 2,300 people aged 18-65 located across the U.S. that participated in the study, 66% believed that the radio stations they listen to air about the same amount of commercials as they did one year ago. Additionally, 24% said it seemed like the radio stations they listen to aired more commercials than in April 2004. Just 10% believed there were fewer commercials than one year ago.
"The data here confirms what we've been seeing in our custom Benchmark surveys," Benchmark President/CEO Dr. Rob Balon said. "Listeners have simply not recognized reduced spot loads, if they indeed exist, on every station. More listeners thought that commercial loads had gone up than gone down."
Balon notes, however, that listeners "don't listen as closely as we'd like them to and they don't identify change anywhere near as rapidly as we'd like them to." Therefore, he says it will probably take "substantially longer for the 'fewer commercials' trend to be seen as a real, substantive benefit by most listeners. Simply because stations have begun playing few commercials, they're confronting a perceptual landscape that was created by years of playing more commercials than listeners cared to hear." |