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March 22, 2023 (Note: Ranked Top 10 Most Read Radio Ink Articles In 2023)

Earlier this year, One Putt Broadcasting in Fresno, California did what so many stations only dream of: they limited ads on each of their five stations to five minutes per hour. As radio chases the shorter stopset, Radio Ink talked with One Putt owner John Ostlund about the path there and the results.

Radio Ink: Everybody claims that they want shorter stop sets, but so few do it. Why do you think that is?

John Ostlund: One Putt is fortunate we just don’t have any debt. And so that’s the biggest competitive advantage that we could possibly have. Well, and I really believe in being different. And I really believe in radio. If you wanna have a great brand, there are two things you have to do before everything else. One is to make your listeners happy and the other is to make your advertisers happy.

“We are seeing media history being made right before our very eyes,” says Cumulus Media Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard. He has dug into the latest Nielsen Total Audience Report that tracks media consumption across all media and it reveals that for the first time ever, AM/FM radio has surpassed television in the key 18-49 advertising demographic. According to Nielsen, broadcast radio had a three percent greater average audience than TV during the third quarter of 2022.  

“That has never happened before,” Bouvard says. “This is occurring because of the stiff and steep erosion in 18-49 linear TV reach and time spent. This is being fueled by cord cutting and streaming.”

It’s not just reach where radio is gaining ground. Nielsen says 18-49 daily time spent with TV and AM/FM radio are now virtually tied. Television has a mere three-minute advantage over broadcast radio – 1 hour and 13 minutes versus 1 hour and 10 minutes.

“That is quite a head-snapper,” Bouvard says. “Radio’s advantage and reach is what's causing it to beat TV in 18 to 49 average audience,” he explains in a video detailing his findings. Click Here

Audiences are groups of people with specific interests, intents, and demographics, as estimated by Google. You can select from a wide range of categories -- such as fans of sport and travel, people shopping for cars, or specific people that have visited your website. Google Ads will show ads to people who are likely in the selected categories.  Click Here

Written by Emily Atkinson      |       13/12/18
Click through rate has long been hailed as the holy grail of digital advertising performance, when in reality, clicks only paint part of the picture.The average CTR on display advertising campaigns currently sits at a seemingly low 0.1%. With over $273 billion spent annually on digital advertising and only a small percentage of ads being clicked on, there has to be more to ad performance than clicks alone if brands are continuing to pump such large budgets into the channel.  Click Here

By RBR-TVBR -  October 29, 2019   

Despite what prognosticators may tell you, traditional television is still the most popular video medium and the best way for brands to achieve reach.  That’s the conclusion of NCSolutions SVP of TV and Programmatic Solutions Tom Eaton, a 7 1/2 year Nielsen veteran. 

By Tom Eaton 

To hear the experts tell it, linear TV is dead. Dead. Kaput. An entire industry obliterated. Yet, TV is still around, and in a much bigger and more meaningful way than these prognosticators say, perhaps even realize. It doesn’t fit the salacious narrative about the Death of TV, but the reality is that TV remains the single best advertising channel for achieving reach and building brands— and that is unlikely to change anytime over the next 10 years. There’s no denying that the emergence of Netflix, Hulu and HBO’s over-the-top offerings have eaten into the linear TV industry. The majority of U.S. homes now have a streaming device, and the time consumers spend watching traditional TV has decreased in recent years. But when it comes to video consumption, TV is still king. 

The average U.S. adult watches nearly four and a half hours of traditional television per day, counting both live and time-shifted TV — more than three times greater than the amount of time spent watching video on OTT devices (54 minutes per day), smartphones (13 minutes), tablets (7 minutes) or a laptop (5 minutes) combined. TV also reaches a greater share of the population (86 percent) than mobile (53 percent) and OTT (42 percent). Even more importantly, marketers still love TV. Critics will surely say this is because the advertising industry is slow to adapt to changes in the market, and that brands continue buying TV only because they are comfortable with it, not because it’s a better option. Even with all the targeting and attribution tools afforded by digital, brand marketers still desire reach for many of their campaigns, and the data makes it clear: TV is, by far, the most effective channel in that respect. A marketer would need to run two months of online video ads to achieve the same amount of reach it can get with a TV commercial. No wonder TV CPMs are increasing and that TV upfront dollar volume has grown over the past 4 years and this year most networks enjoyed double-digit CPMs with increased media budgets. 

Meanwhile, TV advertising is catching up with digital in terms of targeting. TV ad targeting used to be limited to age and gender, but advances in data collection and statistical analysis have enabled us to build look-alike audiences and target with greater precision. Now, cat food brands can target people who actually buy cat food, which is more precise than buying based only on demographics (like middle-aged women). With Addressable TV, brands can target individual households just like with online video, and we are nearing a day when they will be able to do so to the entire broadcast, providing the much-sought scale. The idea that streaming has destroyed TV’s business model is overblown and just plain false. 

Sure, cord-cutting has grown significantly in past years, the number of households receiving TV over the air growing 48% in the past 8 years, but there’s evidence cord-cutting rates are slowing. In fact, cable TV bundles look increasingly attractive to consumers in light of the proliferation of paid streaming services (Apple, AT&T, Disney and NBCUniversal are all expected to release their own owned and operated streaming services over the next two years). Cord-cutting only became popular because it was a more cost-effective alternative to traditional CABLE. That’s not necessarily the case when you’re paying for six different streaming services. Even with prices ranging from $6.99 to $19, it adds up quickly. 

I’m not going to make a grand, contrarian pronouncement that I can’t prove and say TV is making a comeback.  But, I do know this: TV is still a great advertising channel.

Another year, another increase to your monthly pay-TV bill.  Giants including Comcast Corp., Dish Network Corp. and AT&T Inc.’s DirecTV plan to raise rates again in the new year, a move that could boost revenue but risks alienating subscribers who have been ditching their traditional TV subscriptions in record numbers. Click Here