Who Listens To Commercials On Boston Radio?

Every week, 3,543,709 adult consumers tune-in to a Boston radio station. That is way more than are reached by other media, including local television, newspaper, social media, or streaming audio sites like Pandora and Spotify.

A more significant number for thousands of New England small business owners who advertise on Boston radio is how many of these listeners stick around when their commercials come on.

A 2011 Nielsen study discovered that, on average, 93% of listeners stayed with the radio station they are tuned-to when the commercials come on. That number amazed many advertisers at the time who believed that audiences were far more likely to defect when the music stopped.

A lot has changed since 2011. Boston area consumers have many more media options and can instantly connect to each  with a button-push, mouse-click, screen-tap, or voice command. With all of these choices, do radio audiences still stay tuned during commercial breaks?

According to a new study from the Journal of Advertising Research,  audiences in 2020 are more than twice as likely to stick with the radio station they are tuned to during commercials than they were nine years ago.

In the current study, the authors combined portable people-meter data ratings to measure loss of audience during advertising. They discovered a new benchmark of 3% for avoidance of radio advertising.

In other words, 97% of consumers stay glued to the station they are listening to during a commercial break.

The conclusion of the recent study affirms the decision for local small business owners who choose to market their goods and services on Boston radio.

"This first independent academic study of radio-advertising avoidance based on portable people-meter data," say the study's authors,  "has contributed a new (low) benchmark for radio mechanical advertising avoidance."

"These findings will help advertisers to abandon unfounded beliefs and may encourage more of them to consider using radio advertising. On the basis of these results, radio advertisers now are free to focus on those times when the greatest number of potential customers are reached."

Click here to access the complete study.

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