News radio makes huge gains during election year and looks to keep momentum going
In a recent post on its website, ratings giant and market research company Nielsen noted that this election season posted a huge spike for news radio formats. This may be no surprise, but the buzz for news radio is staying strong.
While it may be premature to say that listenership will remain high, so far into 2017, there is still reason to believe that the current administration’s actions may lead people to stay active on the format.
With radio still reaching 93% of US consumers each week, according to Nielsen’s latest Comparable Metrics Report, the company found that news radio’s significant spike – up to 38,867,183 weekly average audience in 2016 over 2015, which had 36,812,258. Listeners spent nearly five hours each week engaged with the content over 2016, up from both 2012 and 2015.
In 2012, news radio audience levels also rose during the election year, up to over 39 million weekly average audience, and 2016 proved to be no different. The news radio format gained significant listenership across personal people meter (PPM) markets in 2016 and was the number one-ranked format among persons aged six and older. Weekly listenership rose by 2m from 2015, as audiences were highly interested and invested in the unique election season.