Report: Radio Helped Joe Biden Deliver His ''Texas Tuesday''

RADIO ONLINE | Friday, March 6, 2020

Nielsen Audio

This year's Super Tuesday had the greatest number of states with primary elections and caucuses for the U.S. presidential election and it resulted in big vote counts and delegates to former Vice President Joe Biden. In particular, his victory in Texas, dubbed "Texas Tuesday." So how did Biden secure the state's primary race? Nielsen's has found that his campaign's investments in radio in key cities may have helped him pull off his victory writes Nielsen Audio Managing Director Brad Kelly.

Kelly says winning in politics today depends on a number of factors, including getting the message out across all media -- including both audio and visual. Previous Nielsen research found that U.S. consumers frequently use TV and digital devices simultaneously. It also confirmed what is logical -- that few consumers watch TV and listen to Audio entertainment at the same time.

In Texas, Biden was able to successfully tap into these unique audiences. Biden's campaign decided to invest in radio -- to engage black voters in the week prior to Super Tuesday. According to advertising expenditure data from Media Monitors, he devoted about 15% of his media budget to radio in Dallas and Houston (where he won) while avoiding the temptation to go after Austin (which went resoundingly to Sanders). And this focus on radio helped him optimize his reach of voters.

Source: Nielsen Local Media Impact Projected Campaign Reach, Dallas, February 26 to March 3, Adults 18+.

Take Dallas, for example, where Sanders had been advertising exclusively on TV and cable over the past month, spending just over a million dollars. Starting last Wednesday, in the final days prior to voting, the Sanders campaign spent $300,000 to reach an estimated 59% of Democratic registered voters in the market and 61% of black Democratic registered voters.

Meanwhile, Kelly writes that Biden hadn't advertised at all in Dallas prior to last week but came on strong using a mix of radio and TV with a significantly smaller budget of $195,000. Using just a handful of Urban-formatted radio stations (and only 13% of the budget), Nielsen projects that the former vice president reached 63% of Democratic registered voters and a staggering 77% of black Democratic registered voters.

The Biden campaign spent 36% less than Bernie Sanders and reached 26% more black voters. This strategy paid off in a huge way when the Biden campaign invested in radio, which reaches voters during the day when TV viewing is much lower than prime time.

Proving this out, Kelly says the TV plans between Biden and Sanders generated nearly identical reach during the full week. The difference for Biden was radio, which added additional reach during nearly every hour of the day and particularly during working hours when most consumers are away from home and their TV screens.

Radio remains the medium with the greatest reach, and it clearly has the ability to engage in ways that TV alone does not.