TECHSURVEY 2020: DIGITAL PLATFORMS ARE UP, BUT RADIO REACH REMAINS HIGH • CONFERENCE STATUS UPDATES

Last Thursday (3-26), Fred Jacobs presented a webinar to detail results of Techsurvey 2020 (TS 2020).  TS 2020 was originally scheduled for released at All Access Media’s Worldwide Radio Summit. The conference was cancelled.

You can download TS 2020 here.

TS 2020 looks at the media consumption and perceptions of 46,008 people who are listeners to 504 commercial radio stations in the U.S. and Canada. The survey was conducted 
January 7 - February 9, 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic was widely know in the U.S. (Scroll down to see more about the sample.)

Reports about TS 2020 from media news sites focused on these headlines from the survey:

• All Access [link] described the Media Pyramid in TS 2020 (seen on the right) as a “cavalcade of data.” Their summary of TS 2020 said: 

“[TS 2020 shows] time spent using various devices and media, with TV/video, smartphones, and AM/FM radio (at 90%), and social media leading the field and several other devices and media showing substantial usage and growth, from streaming video and phones connected to the car to podcasts and smartwatches.”

• Inside Radio [link] highlighted the increasing importance of local programming to listeners:

Radio’s local orientation continues to grow in importance among those that matter the most to the medium – its core users. The portion of listeners that strongly agree or agree that radio’s local feel is one of its primary advantages increased for a fourth consecutive year to 88%, according to Jacobs Media’s Techsurvey 2020. That’s up from 86% in 2019 and 77% in 2016.

“’Local is a huge reason why people enjoy radio, it’s part of radio’s secret sauce,” Jacobs Media President Fred Jacobs said during a webinar Thursday. “As media become more national and global, there's no question that local radio becomes more resonant’.”

• Radio Ink [link] noted that Fred Jacobs made the hour-long [webinar] presentation from the basement of his home in Detroit. They said that an important finding was the different perceptions of radio’s place in the current media environment: 

“From the research that Jacobs gathered was the stunning statistic about how radio is perceived by radio listeners, when compared to other media. And, it confirms what Entercom CEO David Field has said for years, that radio is under-valued by advertisers. It also confirms that radio still has work to do in telling its story, even to its own audience.”

“When Jacobs asked listeners what they believed the market share was for SiriusXM, Spotify, Pandora and Radio, compared to the actual market shares.”

Spark News will report takeaways from TS 2020 of interest to noncom folks this week.

THERE ARE BIG DIFFERENCES IN THE SAMPLES USED FOR TECHSURVEYS AND THE PUBLIC RADIO TECH SURVEYS

Jacobs Media provides annual tech surveys for three groups of stations: Commercial radio, Public Radio and Christian Music radio. PRPD and Jacobs are planning to do another Public Radio Tech Survey (PRTS) later in 2020.

Respondents for both surveys are harvested from data lists and social media pages of the participating stations. The formats of the stations are the best way to compare the samples. 

Spark News compared the composition of the samples from TS 2018 and PRTS 2018, the most recent year when format breakouts for both were available.

As you can see on the chart on the left, the samples for the two surveys are very, very different.  85% of the sample used to compile TS 2018 came from music stations; only 15% came from commercial News/Talk stations.

On the other hand, the sample used for PRTS 3018 came primarily – 63% - came from NPR News/Talk stations. Full-time public radio music stations represented 31%.

NO CHANGES IN THE STATUS OF CONFERENCES

We are keeping tabs on the status of conferences of interest to public radio folks. Though there have been no changes since last week, attention now turns to the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA) conference scheduled for late June. 

This notice appears on the PMJA website [link]:

“We are monitoring the situation in Seattle related to the spread of COVID-19 and how that may affect our 2020 conference scheduled for June 25-27 at the Renaissance Hotel.”

“The personal health and safety of our members and conference participants is our top priority.  We are exploring our options and you will hear soon if there are plans to postpone or cancel our 2020 conference.”