RADIO SURVEYS/PSA RESEARCH
Cable PSA Trends Survey
Analysis of Radio Survey
Methodology
One thousand randomly selected stations were sent a very short survey form. If the stations did not respond within 3 weeks a follow-up request was sent to the station. A total of 671 cards were received for a response rate of 67%.
Preferred Format
Of the 671 responses 641 completed this section. Respondents could choose more than one format.
The gross response for each category were as follows:
- 583 - Disc CD - 91%
- 56 - Reels - 9%
- 53 - Cassette - 8%
- 49 - Live - 8%
An examination of the respondents that only chose one format had the following results:
- 523 - Disc CD - 88.6%
- 27 - Reels - 4.6%
- 23 - Cassette - 3.9%
- 17 - Live - 2.8%
Preferred Lengths
Of the 671 respondents 646 completed this sections. Respondents could choose more than one length.
- 606 - 60 seconds - 94%
- 406 - 30 seconds - 62%
- 39 - 20 seconds - 6%
- 48 - 15 seconds - 7%
- 37 - 10 seconds - 6%
©Copyright Radio Access/a division of FilmComm, Inc. 1996
Radio Survey
Methodology
In an attempt to understand the changing marketplace for Public Service Announcements in the radio market, TV Access prepared and conducted the attached extensive survey.
The survey was disseminated via direct mail. Responses were returned via an 800 # fax line to TV Access.
The request for information (Radio Survey) was made to 5,000 radio stations nationwide.
This survey was completed in its entirety by 724 respondents. An additional 6 surveys were returned but not completed in a manner suitable for including in the final tabulation. Finally, 64 surveys were returned as undeliverable.
Overall, the percentage of response was 15% (721/4936).
This is a statistically relevant response.
This radio survey inquired of radio stations concerning three production questions.
1. Localizations
The first production question asked radio stations their desire to air localized radio PSAs. The question was phrased as follows:
"Is your station more likely to air PSAs which have a local tag?"
The response called for a simple "Yes" or ""No".
A total of 643 stations responded to this question, 351 (55%) answered "Yes" and 292 (45%) responded "No".
Conclusion and/or Inferences
The positive responses were 10% above the negative responses. This survey clearly details the advantage to localizing your radio message. Since localized PSAs also carry the national version and since the majority of station prefer to air localized messages, localizing your messages place your PSA in a win-win situation. Radio stations that prefer to air localized messages can use that version, and radio stations that prefer the national version will air that version.
With a 55%/45% split, it is also clear that-
- simply localizing your message is no guarantee of exceptional results
- conversely, not localizing your message is no guarantee of poor results
2. Music Backgrounds
The second production question inquired of radio stations their preference of having a music background on PSAs. The question was phrased as follows:
"Do you prefer music background on PSAs?"
The response called for a simple ""Yes" or ""No".
A total of 639 stations responded to this question, 430 (80%) answered "Yes" and 109 (20%) responded "No".
There was a second part to this question for stations that responded positively. These stations were asked to check one of eight musical styles, or fill in an optional ‘other’ category.
We received 963 responses to this portion of the survey from 402 radio stations. Of the stations responding 284 selected one musical background choice, 54 selected two choices, 64 stations selected three or more musical backgrounds.
The results were as follows:
| Adult Contemporary |
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| Easy Listening |
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| Country |
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| Jazz |
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| Rock |
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| Other |
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| Classical |
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| Blues |
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| New Age |
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Of the stations selecting other musical backgrounds the write-in choices were as follows:
| Alternative |
8
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| Christian | 8 |
| Gospel 8 |
9
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| Oldies 7 | 7 |
| Bluegrass 4 | 2 |
| Religious 4 | 19 |
| Fifties 3 | 27 |
| Inspirational 3 | 220 |
| Urban 3 | 52 |
| Contemporary 2 | 10 |
| Must Fit PSA 2 | 8 |
| Top 40 2 | 1 |
| AM Adult Contemporary 1 | 13 |
| Americana 1 | 28 |
| Classic Hits 1 | 7 |
| Hawaiian 1 | 6 |
| Hip-Hop 1 | 118 |
| Hot AC 1 | 69 |
| Instrumental 1 | 117 |
| Middle Of Road 1 | 5 |
| Pop Christian 1 | 10 |
| Punk 1Soft AC 1 | 8 |
| Total Write-In Responses | 65 |
Most notable in the write-in is the growing request for religious or Christian musical backgrounds. The combination of Religious, Christian, Gospel, Inspirational and Pop Christian equal a total of 24 responding stations, more than one third of the stations responding to the other category.
Most of the ‘other’ responses can be categorized into one of the eight categories.
3. Length of PSAs
The final survey question concerned radio stations preferred length of PSAs. The question was phrased as follows:
"In what length does your station prefer PSAs?" (check all that apply)
The response called for a check (s) in the following categories:
"60 sec" ""30 sec" ""20 sec" ""15 sec" ""10 sec".
The results were as follows:
| 60 seconds |
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| 30 seconds |
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| 20 seconds |
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| 15 seconds |
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| 10 seconds |
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Matching our past experience 30 and 60 second PSAs continue to be the most requested lengths by PSA Media Gatekeepers. This survey documents a switch to more stations preferring 30 second PSAs to any other length.
There is also a rise in the number of stations reporting a desire for 20, 15 & 10 second PSAs. Of the shorter length PSAs, 15 seconds continues to have a slight edge over the 10 and 20 second versions.
1996 Radio Survey Results
Our survey of 1996 had the following results-
| 60 seconds |
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| 30 seconds |
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| 20 seconds |
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| 15 seconds |
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| 10 seconds |
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Of the 671 responders 646 completed this section. Responders could choose more than one length.
This radio survey queried radio stations concerning three distribution questions.
1. Live Reads
The first distribution question asked radio stations on their desire to have live read PSAs included with their packages. The question was phrased as follows:
"Does your station prefer "live read" PSAs?"
The response called for a simple "Yes" or ""No".
A total of 658 stations responded to this question.
Clearly the majority of stations with Media Gatekeepers prefer to have recorded message as the medium to deliver PSAs.
Further analysis of the stations responding negatively to question 2, "Is your station able to use PSAs supplied on CD even if you prefer another format?" shows that 92% of these negative responses were from stations that prefer live read.
Live read remains the only viable method of obtaining air plays on certain stations. However, most stations still prefer to receive a produced PSA.
2. Scripts
The second distribution question inquired of radio stations their preference of having a script accompany the PSAs. The question was phrased as follows:
"Does your station prefer to receive a script with PSAs?"
The response called for a simple "Yes" or ""No".
A total of 682 stations responded to this question.
TV Access’ experience is that it’s relatively easy to include a script within most radio PSA packaging. It would seem to be a win-win situation, if possible, to include a script with each release. The majority of radio stations that want scripts can receive scripts and the minority of stations that do not wish to receive scripts, can simply ignore that section of the packaging.
3. Special Interests
The final survey question concerned radio stations special interests. The question was phrased as follows:
"Does your station have a special interest (i.e., health, environment, events, education, etc.)?"
The response called for a simple "Yes" or ""No".
A total of 640 stations responded to this question.
A second part to this question was posed to all stations that responded "Yes". Only 142 of the 215 stations that responded "Yes" completed this section. Almost half (68) of the respondents list more than one issue.
Responses were in a very wide range of issues. However, the example issue skewed the responses. The response to the issues listed as examples was as follows-
| Health |
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| Environment |
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| Events |
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| Education |
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The 39 other responses covered the complete gamut of issues from Abuse to Youth. Significant categories include seniors, children/youth, religious, family and ethnic issues.
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This survey was sent nationwide to radio stations which we identified as having a Public Service Director or equivalent title. There were 724 responses to the survey.
- These media gate keepers were in charge of PSAs at almost one thousand stations (989).
- Fully one-third of the responders had responsibility for more than one station.
- One media gate keeper had responsibility for 6 radio stations.
- The stations responding came from 47 different states plus the District of Columbia.
- When compared to population by states, the Northeast and the Far-West (except for California) were under-represented and the Mid-West and the Mid-Atlantic States were over represented.
The stations range from WOR with an audience of over 100,000 to stations that have audiences of less than 100. The average sign on/sign off audience for the stations responding to the radio survey is over 3,500 listeners. This is within the average range for all radio stations nationwide.
The average dollar value for stations responding to this survey is $20. per 30 second spot. Again this is within the middle third of the national average.
The survey had 146 station responses from 20 of the top 20 markets. This represents 15% of the total responses. Over half of the stations responding were in the top 100 markets. The breakout of markets and stations is as follows-
- 5 of the top 5 markets on 64 stations.
- 10 of the top 10 markets on 98 stations.
- 15 of the top 15 markets on 120 stations.
- 20 of the top 20 markets on 146 stations.
- 23 of the top 25 markets on 167 stations.
- 48 of the top 50 markets on 267 stations.
- 88 of the top 100 markets on 448 stations.
The stations responding represented the following station programming formats:
| Adult Contemporary |
202
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| Album Oriented Rock | 30 |
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Beautiful Music |
9
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| Black | 7 |
| Children | 2 |
| Classical | 19 |
| Contemporary Hit | 27 |
| Country | 220 |
| Diversified | 52 |
| Easy Listening | 10 |
| Education | 8 |
| Gospel | 1 |
| Jazz | 13 |
| Middle of the Road | 28 |
| Miscellaneous | 7 |
| Modern Country | 6 |
| News/Talk | 118 |
| Nostalgia/Oldies | 69 |
| Religious | 117 |
| Spanish | 5 |
| Top 40 | 10 |
| Urban Contemporary | 8 |
Station Media Formats Preferences
A break out of the preferred formats for the responding systems reveals the following trends:
The use of Compact Discs (CDs) continues to be the most prevalent playback equipment at radio stations with 84% preferring this medium and 95% having CDs as either their first choice or usable alternative.
Although CDs have come to dominate the radio market place, there remains 7% preferring reel to reel tapes and 8% preferring cassettes.
The 8% preferring cassette typically (91%) represented non-market or unassigned market stations. Of the stations preferring cassette, 99% had less than five hundred average listeners.
The stations preferring reel to reel were more representative of the radio industry as a whole. Twenty-two percent were assigned to a market by Arbitron and 9% had average audience in excess of five hundred.
Conclusion
TV Access sees the trend to the high-end CD format among radio stations as almost complete. With the advent of different electronic and analog duplication mediums, TV Access is aware that this may change significantly in the future and TV Access pledges to stay abreast of radio stations preferences.
©Copyright 1998 TV Access