Saturday, July 07, 2007

Be the Demographic

Heard recently during a public radio pledge drive:

“You are intelligent. You are actually based on demographics.”

Coincidently, I just received the latest edition of NPR’s Profile 2007 – a 500-page book on public radio demographics, audience perceptions, and consumer behaviors. I guess we should consider it the recipe book for public radio listeners. Here are some items that jumped out as I browsed its pages.

· The public radio audience isn’t getting any younger despite a decade of industry talk about making it younger.
· Public radio has made no progress on diversifying its audience.
· Public radio’s appeal to highly educated listeners remains strong. Example: you are six times more likely to find someone with a PhD in the NPR News audience than in the general population.
· Public radio listeners are more advertising-adverse than the average American.

But you probably already knew all this. Let’s get to the good stuff.

Public radio listeners like their drink. They are more likely to consume alcohol than the average adult. That applies not only to wine, but also to beer and whisky. Their mixed drink of preference: the margarita. Rum and Coke or Gin and Tonic will do in a pinch.

Public radio listeners are 13% more likely than the average adult to use diet control, 27% more likely to use a hair loss treatment product, and 91 percent more likely to use products for sexual/erectile dysfunction.

Then there is this: women in the public radio audience were 3% more likely to have purchased new underwear in the past year. Men were 22% more likely.

Draw your own conclusions.

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1 Comments:

Blogger Aaron Read said...

Here's an amusing fictional tale about art and the survival of humanity. The fiance of the writer aptly described it as "one of the most elaborate and apocalyptic solicitations to donate to public television she'd ever heard. The world could end tomorrow if you don’t pledge now — and you get this beautiful tote bag..."

With that in mind, set aside about 10 minutes to read through this and be prepared to laugh your ass off at the last paragraph or two.

The Mythology of the Modern World: Why can we walk past beautiful artwork without noticing it?

11:21 AM  

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