Radio Results Blog

The year was 2003.  Ninety-three percent of Americans listened to radio each week.  But what else could they do in the olden days?  Facebook did not exist; that would come a year later.  2003 was the year iTune's was born but there were only 200,000 songs available then, far short of the 100,000,000 titles available today. And back then you needed to plop down $535 for an iPod to listen to downloaded music.  Now, of course media players are free on phones and tablets.  Also is 2003, YouTube was two years from existence; Twitter was three years from birth; Amazon Kindles were four years away; and iPads would not show up for 7 more years.  No wonder radio still flourished in 2003, there was nothing else to do!  So, ten years later, has technology killed the radio star? Absolutely not!

"Nobody listens to radio!"  So says Merlin Aylesworth, President of NBC.  According to Aylesworth, "Within three years [radio] will be wiped out."  This view is supported by Bernard Smith of Harper's Magazine who said, "[Radio] may, for a brief period of time, maintain a marginal existence before being finally relegated to the storeroom." 

Here are 5 important facts every radio advertiser needs to know about radio:

This week, a retail clerk in Portsmouth, NH filed a noise-complaint about a Salvation Army Santa Claus ringing his bell.  “This is my fourth year and I can’t take it anymore. I’m so sick of it,” the clerk told Seacoast Online. "Forty hours per week, five weeks per year is enough to make anyone go research city noise ordinances."

This week marks the 92nd anniversary of the first commercial radio broadcast. The first day's programming  was devoted to announcing the results of the 1920 presidential contest between Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox.  Both candidates had made a fortune in newspaper ownership.  It's kind of ironic that radio was born on the same day that newspaper reached the zenith of media dominance in America.

Most businesses are already engaged in some sort of advertising.  This might include investment in newspaper, yellow pages, broadcast-television, or local- cable.  Without exception, combining radio with any other medium contributes profound strength to a campaign.  Radio, however, produces a differnet set of synergies with each medium it interacts with.  The Radio Advertising Bureau's competitive media primer does a specatcualr job of describing the effects of combining radio with other media.  Below is a summary of those benefits.

The most common questions new radio advertisers ask are

Here are 5 of the most common rookie mistakes made by first time radio advertisers and suggestions on how to avoid making them.

Actually, all radio personalities are guilty of parasocial interactions with their listeners...and it's another reason why listeners love radio.  Most importantly, it's why radio continues to be an engaging and compelling advertising medium. A recent study by The University of California, Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism finds that 82% listeners have parasocial feelings for their favorite radio personalities.

Small businesses in Southern Maine have many media options to promote and advertise their business including Portland Radio, Local Television, Local Newspaper, Local Editions of National Newspapers, and Cable Channels.  As discussed in a previous blog article and the Small Business Guide To Effective Radio Advertising, when choosing between media,  the quality of an audience is always paramount to the overall size of an audience.