Music Cycle 2023 Year Four Of The Doldrums And How We Got Here (Part 2)

Worst Doldrums Of The Music Cycle Means Tough Times For Top 40 Radio

So why is it the worst Doldrums cycle ever for Top 40 radio because over the last few years we’ve seen Top 40 radio’s average ranking in the ratings reached its lowest point ever.

During the early 2010s it was averaging 2nd 6+ in Nielson. By 2020 it was tied for 4th 2021 5th and in 2022 its 7th, In many markets it’s barely Top 7 looking at 6+, with many stations out of the top 10 completely with Classic Rock, Classic Hits and AC formats dominating.

This same weak trend for Top 40 has occurred for all 3 years of The Doldrums.

While the good news is Top 40 radio’s average has held its 18-34P and 25-54P rank position, its share has dropped dramatically since 2016 when the decline began. In 18-34P Top 40 is #1 tied with AC, but minus 50% and 25-54P #3 and minus 30%

Much of the Top 40 ratings decline is caused by an exodus of the under 30 audience and to a lesser extent 30-50P to Streaming platforms, TikTok and Satellite but also to more Gold-based formats.

Yes, we know more people cume radio than any other platforms but in total time spent consuming audio radio itself is struggling mightily especially with Gen Z and Gen Alpha.

Also, America is getting older with the median age now at 38 not 28 like it was in the 70s, but the radio listener average age in Jacob Media’s Latest Tech Survey 2022 is even older at 55.8. So, we’re seeing not only the worst Doldrums for Top 40 radio, but for radio itself.

How did we get here? Death By 1000 Cuts

Yes, radio itself also faces a steep decline in time spent listening - with the massive increase in use of streaming platforms and apps on the mobile phone become the number #1 way to consume audio and its future. But radio suffered through the “Death Of 1000 Cuts” to get here (and no it’s not too late for radio!). Some of this was due to the massive debt load radio overpaid for radio stations, which created a lack of continued investment like we had done prior to Consolidation after the Telecom Bill in 1987. We just haven’t done enough in protect our medium

Here are just a few of the 1000 Cuts:

Radio’s Focus On A Ratings Service, Not The Listener

Radio essentially has become more and more of a background medium not a foreground music medium after Arbitron’s Soft Diary in 1986 which created a focus on workplace and being a utility. Listeners were asked to write down what they “hear” passively in the background and not “listen” to a radio station passionately. To make matters worse, Arbitron added the workplace as a listening location for the first time, which meant that background music stations like Adult Contemporary got 10 times the credit at the workplace as what had been a normal long listening diary to a foreground music station.

In the Summer of ‘86 after the Soft Diary took effect background AC stations that were used at the workplace shot to the top of the ratings all over America, and music formats like Top 40 and Rock dropped to #5 or #6.

So, Arbitron changed the radio landscape by exaggerating the value of passive listening and formats like Top 40, the newly created Hot AC format and others began to focus on a strategy of getting workplace credit to succeed in Arbitron’s new methodology. Radio would never the same again after stations began to be focused on being the best background utility they could be, and as it entered the 2000s, we tried to remove irritants to workplace listening like energetic personalities and intense production.

Arbitron methodology no longer represented the value of a large contingent of listeners accurately and that strategy worked in reverse as it offered a radio offramp to Napster and Spotify for those passionate music fans who no longer were getting as much fun and energy as they wanted from music formats in radio.

Radio’s Mobile Strategy?!?

After Steve Jobs refused to include radio tuner on the iPhone in the early 00s, we did not push hard enough to get an antennae chip so mobile phones could pick up radio terrestrial analog signals on the Android phone. Even recently in order to receive Emergency alerts the FCC asked Apple to install FM Chips, but they refused. Android has an FM tuner but its hidden and has to be unlocked.

Luckily, streaming platforms for radio were created by iHeartradio along with Tune-In, but radio didn’t focus nearly enough on promoting its presence there and the benefits of listening through the app. So, the result as you can see from the Larry Rosen/Edison Research graph, only 12% of listening to radio occurs via streaming and that is a disaster!

Fewer and fewer people actually own radios, and Apps and Bluetooth enabling streaming platforms are invading Radio’s safe place - car listening With the majority of listeners consuming radio on mobile phones, radio as a medium has got to make an all-out effort to advertise the value of our medium on other platforms and convert existing audience to listening to streaming if we’re to survive in the future.

Larry Rosen of Edison Research “Share Of Ear Report” shows the following:

Commercial Load: It is very hard to compete with a streaming platform or app where you have little, or no commercials and you have at times 18-20 commercial an hour. That over-commercialization is a lasting brand impression of radio that will be hard to erase

Personalities, The Next Generation (Radio’s Last Best Hope): Most of the great personalities of today have been on the radio for 20-30 years, and great ones like Scott Shannon have retired while others like Howard Stern moved on to SiriusXM satellite radio. Sadly, we have not invested enough in finding and developing successors to these great shows, personalities that can communicate with the future listeners of our medium: Gen Z and Gen Alpha. We so desperately need these personalities, and we need them in every daypart. We need them live AND local so they can be in constant contact with a new audience that has an ever-shrinking attention span.