As the 2024 election season ramps up, so does political advertising. While campaigns spend heavily on television and digital, a new study conducted by Nielsen reveals radio is an underutilized medium.
According to the Nielsen report, if campaigns shifted their budgets to use 20% of already existing budgets to spend on radio, they could reach 17% more voters.
“Incorporating radio into the broadcast mix early and often will result in better outcomes,” noted Jon Blum, Audacy’s Senior Vice President of Strategy, Partnerships and Analytics. “Radio complements TV’s ability to reach undecided voters that are unreachable on TV.”
The study shows that campaigns are receiving a diminished return on local TV due to declining viewership. However, with radio’s expanded reach, candidates have the ability to get their message heard by an increased portion of the population.
“When campaigns activate a TV plan, they should activate a corresponding radio plan and incorporate it into the mix with TV,” Blum said. “The portion of the population that isn’t reachable via TV could be the swing vote and what throws it over the top for a candidate.”
Potentially most important to political campaigns, radio reaches a whopping 23% of swing voters who were not seeing or hearing messages with those candidates who only allocated money to television and digital.
