| Public Radio's Generation X Audience | |||
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Basic Principles | |
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Cases From The X Files |
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I Want My NPR |
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I Am Not A Slacker |
| Wait 'Til You're Old Enough | |||
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How Gen X Uses Public Radio | |
Basic Principles
I shall never believe that God
plays dice with the world.
The Lord God is subtle, but malicious he is not.
– Albert Einstein
AUDIENCE 98's Gen X findings are like Einstein’s powerful "mind experiments". Every result follows from basic principles.Look at the main findings.
- Our programming currently serves significant numbers of Gen Xers. In fact, they’re growing into our audience as fast as their Baby Boom parents did at their age.
We could have predicted that. Education is the primary determinant of public radio listening, and the Gen X cohort is becoming the best-educated in history. Why wouldn’t the most basic law of public radio appeal apply to them?
- The Xers who tune to public radio are in tune with its social and cultural values – values that tend to blossom with high levels of formal education.
There’s no surprise here. Every station, program, and personality attracts those most in tune with its social and cultural values. The values may be Cokie Roberts’ or Don Imus’ – each resonates with those who choose to listen.
- The Xers who tune to public radio are different than those who don’t – just as Boomers who listen are different than those who don’t.
While other stations target a certain age, sex, or race of listener, public radio operates in a different dimension: education. We distinguish ourselves from our peers; and so our listeners distinguish themselves from their peers.
- The Xers who enter the audience for music of their young lives are different from those who enter for public radio’s hallmark programming.
The most basic of principles: programming causes audience, and different programming causes different audiences.
Today, public stations provide the programming of choice for educated Americans. We dominate this niche. So far we own it.
We can build on this strength in preparation for the day our position will be challenged.
Or we can program for Gen Xers.
We can’t do both on the same stations without alienating the eight-in-nine listeners who aren’t Gen Xers.
This too follows from basic principles. We don’t need to conduct the actual experiment to verify the outcome.
Basic Principal
Replace "Gen X" with any other group of people. The results of the mind experiment are the same. When those in our industry proclaim we should serve more Gen Xers, minorities, or whomever, I say, "That’s terrific. Go forth and multiply."
- Multiply the number of programs it will take to serve this audience 24 hours a day, 365 days each year.
- Multiply the number of stations it will take to devote one in each market to this audience.
- Multiply the dollars it will take to pay for this programmatic and systematic expansion.
- Multiply the effort, focus, and expertise it will take to own this niche. That’s the only way this service will be viable in our highly competitive medium.
Amidst all of this multiplying, we can’t forget to subtract resources from stations and programming that might better serve the current audience or strengthen our existing position.
So before we divert resources to focus on Gen Xers or minorities or whomever, let’s acknowledge and accept that we already serve the well-educated component of each of these cohorts. Strengthening our current service will better serve more people of any well-educated stripe.
We leave our area of expertise. We may even compromise deeply held ideals and highly esteemed standards.In fact, when we say we want a different audience, we’re really saying we want an audience that isn’t so highly educated.
No value judgment expressed or implied. Just a reminder of basic principles.
– David Giovannoni
AUDIENCE 98 Core
Team
Audience Research Analysis
Copyright © ARA and CPB. All rights reserved.
Revised: September 01, 2000 12:38 PM.