Is Radio more influential than television? That was the question posed in one of the ABA conference sessions this week.

Nova Melbourne GM Fiona Cameron argued in favour of radio’s influence against Susan Oddie from Network Ten. The session was a fun way of making some serious points about both media.

“Radio is local, relevant, targeted, flexible, likeable and friendly,” said Fiona Cameron, who went on to make the following points and to call ‘witnesses’ supporting radio in the mock court trial.

“If television was a dog it would be a great, lumbering St Bernard. Television is top end of town, broad (big/fat), removed, traditional, conservative and bland!” said Cameron, who described radio as “a blue heeler –nipping at heels, rounding up and pushing the boundaries.”

Cameron’s other points included:

· Radio is smarter, has more personality and more potential

· Advertising expenditure on commercial radio increased by 0.8 per cent to $684.4 million in 2002, demonstrating radio’s resilience in the advertising downturn

· Radio is the only medium that has achieved growth in advertising expenditure for the past two years running

· Commercial radio is performing well compared to other media because it offers advertisers flexibility, reach and better value for money –a very attractive combination in the current market place

· In times of conflict, radio listening tends to rise as people stay tuned to their radios for news, entertainment and a sense of community.

· Overall, radio listening was up by five percent in the first five days after war began as measured by the Portable People Meter (PPM) panel in Philadelphia.

· PPM data reveal that news formatted radio actually delivers the highest cumulative reach. News formatted radio station KYW-AM reached more people in Philadelphia area than Subscription TV’s CNN, MSNBC or any other broadcast news media.

· During the Iraq War, Iraqi residents were advised to turn on their radios to be kept informed.

· Commercial radio advertising revenues rose by just over 5 per cent in the six months ending December 2002.

Research/Audience

· During the day – radio is twice as effective at reaching consumers than TV
6am – 4pm (average) radio 16% / tv 8.7% = 1.8%.
Sources: Nielsen Media Research & OzTAM

More people listened to radio in 2002

· More Australians listened to commercial radio during 2002 compared to the previous two years according to analysis of Nielsen Media Research’s full year radio surveys.

· The average listening audience for commercial radio increased by 0.5 per cent to around 1.28 million people listening at any given time (per quarter hour) during the week nationally – up from 1.27 million last year and 1.16 million in 2000.

· The total listening audience for commercial radio during an average week across Australia also increased to over 8.4 million people in 2002.

· The analysis of the eight ratings surveys in 2002 also shows that Australians maintained a high level of listening time with people, on average, spending nvarchar(15)een hours and twenty eight minutes each week listening to commercial radio.

· Over a 14 hour period (from 5am-7pm), a significantly higher proportion of all time spent is devoted to radio (59%) compared to Television (34%) and Pay TV (7%) Source: CRA, Targeting Time Poor Study.

· Commercial Radio’s share of time is four times more than Television between 9.00am and 4.00pm on an average weekday. Commercial Radio reaches 48% of all people during the hours of 9am-4pm compared to Television’s 17%. Source: CRA, Targeting Time Poor Study, 2002 Update.

· On average, people aged 10+ spend around 2.2 hours per day listening to Commercial Radio compared to 2.6 hours per day of television. Source: CRA, Targeting Time Poor Study.

· Share of time all day – Commercial TV (39%) and Commercial Radio (34%). Source: CRA.

· Workers are more likely to be heavy users of commercial radio (31%) than they are they are to be heavy users of commercial television (29%).

Radio’s growth/potential

In a recent UK study

· From 1985 to 2000 time spent listening to radio per week increased from 14 hours to 21 hours. Television viewing remained static over the same period slightly dipping from 26 hours to 25 hours. For the 15 year period radio time spent listening has increased 65% while television has decreased 3%. Source: Screen Digest/ABN Amro.

· 42% of 16-34 year olds agree that TV is an important part of their daily life compared with 65% for radio. Source: Radio Advertising Bureau

· Radio is more trusted than any other media – 22% of people agree that they don’t trust what they see/read/hear on TV whilst only 11% feel the same way about what they hear on radio.

Witnesses supporting Fiona Cameron’s case were Tony Pilkington, Peter Ickeringill and Anne Parsons, who all believed that radio was more influential than television.