Paragon: Cume Down, Shares Way Up During Pandemic

RADIO ONLINE | Monday, May 18, 2020 | 7:32am CT

The pandemic has changed American's lifestyles more abruptly and deeply than perhaps any event in decades, or perhaps ever. Radio listening is no exception, as millions and millions of people are working from home or no longer working, no longer driving or driving much less, and like so many other part of their lives, up is now down and down is now up.

While Nielsen is still rolling out April market ratings, two things are clear:

1. Radio listening was down... way down.
2. Core listeners drove many station Shares up... way up.

Radio Listening Plummets

History will record April 2020 as the lowest radio listening month in our lifetime. Nielsen data tells us that radio tuning during the four weeks of April were under 70% of pre-COVID baseline levels. The glimmer of good news is that the index moved from 67% for the first three weeks of April to 72% for the last week of April and is now up to 82% for the 2nd week of May. Below is a chart provided by Media Monitors from an Inside Radio article.

Market Share Surges for Stations with Strong Core Audiences

Fascinating and unpredictable anomalies during this crisis have actually boosted certain business sectors. Video conferencing and subscription movie services, internet retail, grocery and meal delivery services, home milk deliveries, family farms, game makers, sex toys, bidet toilets and cannabis usage are all booming. Radio stations with strong core audiences are also on that list.

To illustrate, look no further than public radio stations, which have long suffered from having comparatively small Cume audiences and survive in normal times because of their loyal listeners. During April, tune in levels (Cume) to public radio stations... both news/talk and music... fell dramatically. Yet, the Shares of many if not most of these stations are at unprecedented high-water marks.

A number of NPR News stations are knocking on the door or hit all-time high Shares in April, such as KOPB in Portland (10.2 Share), KQED in San Francisco (9.9), KUT in Austin (9.8 and 10.3 in March), WAMU in Washington (8.4 and 8.7 in March), KNOW in Minneapolis (8.2) and KCFR in Denver (7.8).

The same goes for public radio Music Discovery stations with confirmed all-time high Shares in April: The Current in Minneapolis (4.3), WYEP in Pittsburgh (2.7), KEXP in Seattle (2.2), WNSB in Norfolk (1.6 and 2.0 in March), WFUV in New York (1.2), KRCL in Salt Lake City (1.1) and Indie 102.3 in Denver (.9). "In demo" these stations are also at all-time high market Shares.

If Cume is through the floor then how can Shares be through the roof? Because public radio's long-time reliance on Core listeners is paying off big time during the pandemic. Public radio stations are registering astronomical time spent listening levels (AWTE - Average Weekly Time Exposed). In this time without in-car and office listening, their Core audiences are listening while they work and we are seeing which stations have the most passionate listeners.

We're seeing a similar loyalty pattern on digital fronts. This recent Inside Radio headline says it all: "Public Radio Listeners More Likely To Listen To Podcasts, Own A Smart Speaker."

Listeners clearly value the locally-curated content and critical community service non-commercial radio stations provide in times like these. I believe it is also a reward for all the new programming tactics they've quickly and creatively engineered in response to the crisis.

Who knew that sex toys and public radio had so much in common? The cream, or in radio's case, the Core, always rises to the top.

This article is a special Radio Online contribution from Mike Henry with of Paragon Media Strategies.