June 9, 2008
Drilling Down
Radio’s Popularity Declining Unevenly
By ALEX MINDLIN

Source

Over the last 10 years, the average share of Americans listening to radio at any given time has shrunk about 14 percent, or 2.3 percentage points. Teenagers account for a well-recognized chunk of that decline. But Larry Rosin, a radio consultant with Edison Media Research in Somerville, N.J., points out that college graduates are also far less likely to listen to radio than nongraduates, a gap that has widened with time.

Over the last decade, college graduates ages 25-54, who make up an increasingly large portion of the population, have abandoned radio eight times faster than nongraduates. Today, they listen to 15 hours and 45 minutes of radio a week, while their peers without degrees listen to 21 hours and 15 minutes weekly.

“In part, it’s the nature of the work that people do,” Mr. Rosin said. “Nongraduates are more likely to have jobs that allow them to listen to the radio. If you think of teachers, for example, that’s a huge category of college-educated people in an environment where it’s entirely impossible to listen to the radio.” ALEX MINDLIN

Source

Maybe Rush and company will go on unemployment.

I'm sure this doesn't have all that much to do with talk radio. I know personally if I'm not listening to AAR in the car, I'm listening to my iPod (through the radio, not with headphones) or I'm listening to CDs. Listening to the radio while driving can be a painful experience, has anyone listened to the Top 40 stations lately? They suck! I know I'm getting older but I don't feel like listening to radio personalities who are obviously middle aged or in 30-40 year old white males pretending to be urban hip-hop gangstas.

I doubt talk radio will ever die out completely although satellite will probably be a more likely replacement for AM/FM stations in the future.

*waits for Carmen to dissect my post's potentially racist terms

it's not radio that is losing popularity rather it is the endless stream of comericials sometimes running at light speed that you cant even understand and canned programming, limited selection of tunes, no passion.

Since I got XM satellite radio, the only regular radio I ever listen to is NPR. Well, I should say that when my XM isn't working, like if it's cloudy, or for whatever other reason, I will listen to my local "alternative" station sometimes. Actually, that was the case until I got my Ipod last week. Now I'll probably never listen to the local "alternative" FM station. No big loss. I hate emo. ;p

Here in Sacramento, there is a lack of good talk radio. Rush, Hannity, Savage, Levin, Tom Sullivan and Dr. Laura. No progressive at all.

I'm tellin' ya..ya gotta get out of that damn Valley.

Hell, Rush got his first big-time start right there in Sacramento...there's little hope.

Just sayin'...