Cases From The X Files

The niche market of radio is defined and differentiated by programming. You can’t schedule something for everyone and serve anyone well.

Unfortunately, this cardinal truth can vanish mysteriously in public radio’s debate about attracting listeners we perceive we don’t have now, or don’t have in sufficient numbers.

In our industry and elsewhere, Gen Xers have been generalized into one demographic lump. But they are no more all alike than they are space aliens.

AUDIENCE 98^® returns to radio’s fundamentals by demonstrating that Gen X listeners – like public radio’s overall audience – differ from each other, depending on the appeal of the programming to which they listen.

X Marks The Spots

In evidence are the cases of stations with the most and the fewest Gen Xers in their weekly audiences.

In the first group are four stations with the biggest Gen X cumes, all with NPR-style news and information formats: WBEZ Chicago, WBUR Boston, WAMU Washington, and KQED San Francisco. These stations, with Gen X cumes of 75,000 or more, we dubbed Big X stations.

Four stations have 40% or more Gen Xers in their audiences. As it happens, they are not among the system’s largest cume stations: KCMU Seattle, WDBM East Lansing, WRAS Atlanta, and KSJV Fresno. With the exception of bilingual Latino KSJV, these high concentration Gen X stations broadcast alternatives to alternative rock. All Strong X stations carry ethnic music – from salsa to ska.

Four public FM stations have fewer than 10% Gen Xers in their cumes. (We ignored AM because that band is a barrier to attracting younger listeners.) That left WMFE Orlando, WQED Pittsburgh, KUSC Los Angeles, and WAMC Albany – the Weak X stations.

With one exception, classical music prevails at the Weak X stations. WQED and KUSC air mostly classical music, while WMFE’s format is NPR news and classical. WAMC – with a pastiche of programming that includes NPR news, classical, other music, local talk, children’s programming, and syndicated public affairs – has no dominant format, as well as no appreciable Gen X audience.

One hundred public stations with sizable Gen X Arbitron samples are arrayed above by the number of Gen Xers in their cumes and the concentration of Gen X listeners in their audience.

Big X, Strong X, Weak X

Of the three station groups we studied,

Gen X listeners to Big X stations are the most highly educated. Four-in-10 have advanced college degrees.

Six-in-10 are Actualizers. Of our three Gen X groups, listeners to Big X stations are also the most likely to be in their public station’s core audience.

At classical-dominated Weak X stations, Gen Xers are mostly college graduates, though they are less likely to have advanced degrees than Big X listeners. A third are Actualizers. Another three-in-10 are Experiencers, characterized as young, variety-seeking experimenters who savor the new and abandon it just as quickly. Unsurprisingly then,

Gen X listeners to Weak X stations are the most radio-active and radio-reliant of the three Gen X groups. They use more stations, tune in on more occasions and listen for slightly shorter durations.

They are also the least likely of the Gen X groups to be in their public station’s core.

The greatest contrast among Gen X listeners is found at Strong X stations.

Among our three groups, these are the youngest Gen Xers tuned to public radio, and the least educated.

Slightly less than half of the Gen X listeners to Strong X stations are not college graduates.

Slightly over half are Actualizers, with the rest scattered among various VALS^TM 2 types. However, nine-in-10 agree that the public radio station they listen to reflects their values – whatever those values may be.

Education, the most powerful predictor of listening to public radio, is once again the prime connection between programming and audience.

Gen X listeners to Strong X stations don’t look as much like public radio’s overall audience because

the programming aired on Strong X stations doesn’t have the same education-level appeal.

It also doesn’t sound like the programming that most of 21 million public radio listeners tune to each week.

As these cases demonstrate, the number and concentration of Gen Xers tuned to any particular station depend on the programming aired. That’s hardly paranormal: Programming causes audience – whether that audience is Gen Xers, Baby Boomers, or any other group broadly defined by a single characteristic like age. Each group slices into smaller segments according to programming appeal.

Those who suggest that public radio doesn’t draw younger listeners with its current programming are wrong. Public radio, right now, counts millions of Xers of the educated kind in its weekly audience. The truth is out there.

– Special Agent Peters
AUDIENCE 98 Core Team

 

Audience Research Analysis
Copyright © ARA and CPB.  All rights reserved.
Revised: September 01, 2000 12:38 PM.