Which Morning Show is Unique to its Market?

We’re looking forward to opening up the Morning Show Boot Camp 2016 this Thursday, August 11 in Atlanta. Our session is about Super Fans of morning shows and the shows they love so much. Naturally, there’s a research project underpinning our presentation. After all, what better way to start a rousing day than slide after slide of tables and charts?

We considered lots of markets around the country, markets with great morning shows and/or great morning radio battles. But, in an attempt to be objective, we settled on the three largest markets in the country. We knew each had a number of incredible morning shows, including strong spoken word programming.

We conducted 500+ interviews apiece in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago among Adults 18-54. We screened the sample to ensure that 100% are habitual morning radio users and that all listen at least 30 minutes a day. The sample allowed us to drill down on 2-3 shows in each of the three markets to learn what makes each show tick.

Among many, many questions, we gave respondents a panel of nearly two dozen descriptors (Warm, Sarcastic, Great stories, Hilarious, etc.) and asked them to select any they felt applied to their favorite morning show. One descriptor we included was “Would only work in your city,” which got only sparse mentions (less than 7%) for any of the shows. Though one show in New York did get 15% mention for “Would only work in your city.” We’ll let you guess which one.

We also put in the series of questions we’ve developed to identify those listeners who would be most likely to become PPM panelists, if Nielsen offered them the opportunity. These questions, and their diary-related counterparts, are the underpinning of our twice-annual Ratings Prospect Studies. After all, the PPM wearers are the ones keeping score.

When you filter down to the likely PPM Prospects among this sample of habitual morning radio listeners, things become clearer. We included a group of over a dozen possible motivations for listening to radio in the morning. We’re showing seven of them here, comparing the likely PPM participants (PPM: Yes) with the rest of the sample (PPM: No). The number attracted by DJ’s and Hosts was more than twice as high among the PPM likely respondents as among the rest of the sample. The number attracted by contests was three times as high among the likely PPM participants as among the rest of the sample. And, in a day and age when we can get basic service information on our smartphones in moments, anytime we want it, the demand for those elements is nearly twice as high among likely PPM participants as the rest of the sample.

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We even looked at which shows cause listeners to sometimes stay in their cars to hear something on a show – even though they’ve arrived at their destination already. Some shows have it. Some shows don’t.

And the show that received the top 15% mention for “Would only work in your city?” The Elvis Duran Show – the one syndicated on 80 stations.