With the calendar turning over to 2025, Barrett Media is sitting down with some of the best and brightest media researchers in the industry for a weeklong series, “Digging Through Data.” In the third installment of the series, we spoke with John Boyne and Jay Nachlis of Coleman Insights.
Coleman Insights does a variety of research, in both the radio and podcasting spaces. On the radio side, Boyne, the company’s Executive Vice President and Senior Consultant, said one of the biggest changes Coleman Insights has seen in recent years is the type of research being commissioned.
“We’ve long provided customized local research for radio stations, and it’s super helpful, whether it’s strategic research or library testing or call out,” said Boyne. “But budgets are tightening for a lot of our clients and potential clients, and a lot of them kind of come to us and say, ‘We know what we would like to do, but we’re not able to do that. And at the same time, we feel like we’re flying blind, particularly when it comes to song decisions. In a way, there’s more data than ever, but just because there’s data out there doesn’t necessarily apply to what we do in programming a radio station.’
“So they can look at what other stations are doing, but they don’t know the motivations behind that. They can look at what’s streaming, but what’s streaming is not necessarily the same as what titles would work best on a radio platform in a given market for a given demo. So they’re trying to find some high-quality, data-driven insights, even if it’s not the local that they would ideally like … We’re just trying to meet people where they are. We just want to help, whatever budget that is and help people make informed decisions.”
John Boyne added that local research “remains the gold standard,” but national trends can also help radio brands make better-informed decisions, too.
“There are cycles of when a format is up or down. You often see that in many places, and many of the hits — not all the hits, but many of the hits — are the same in different places,” said Boyne. “So it’s still valuable to get that big picture perspective … it’s good to play songs people like, but if it’s alienating and pushing people away, you kind of need to know that, too.”
On the podcasting side, Coleman Insights — in conjunction with Amplifi Media — released the New Rules of Podcasting on YouTube study in August 2023. Jay Nachlis, Coleman’s Vice President/Consultant & Marketing Director, said that the rise of the digital video platform has only grown since that study was released. Nachlis shared that the study’s release at Podcast Movement in Denver that year was the only session dedicated to video podcasting.
“Last year, there were 15,” Nachlis said with a chuckle. “I just got back from Podfest Expo in Orlando in which there was an entire video podcasting tract. One of the things I talked about was: Is this a bubble? Is this just buzz, or is there something real happening? So we did an interim study that we put out and talked about at Podfest Expo. And one of the things that came out of it was all that momentum that you saw in 2023 in video is really just getting bigger. YouTube is the monster everybody sees it as. It’s just a huge player.
“Everybody’s got an opinion on video podcasting, but the only opinion that matters is the consumer. And the consumer is now defining a podcast — more than ever — as audio and video,” Nachlis said. “They’re using YouTube more than ever for podcasting specifically. They’re using it most often for podcasting specifically. So as consumers are getting more comfortable with that platform, the big lesson for creators is, I know it’s more effort, but more than anything, it’s meeting consumers where they are. That’s what our research is showing: You’ve got to meet the consumer where they are.”
That’s born out in research from Coleman Insights that shows 75% of those surveyed view podcasts as both an audio and visual medium, while only 22% identified podcasts as an audio-only format.
A cynic could say the only reason YouTube has grown as a podcast platform is due to a much higher ad-revenue CPM from the platform compared to audio-only podcasting. But Jay Nachlis says the audience size is the chief motivating factor.
“YouTube is just a massive search engine; it’s a massive platform,” he said. “So people were there anyway, but they just started to consume podcasting in a bigger way there. Some creators are embracing it in a big, big way.
“And even in the year that’s gone by, and a lot of the conversations I just had with creators, they’re definitely embracing it more than they ever have,” admitted Nachlis. “It’s a lot less begrudgingly, like, ‘Ok, I need to be on YouTube,’ but now it’s really, ‘How do I strategically do this in a smart way?’ There has to be a deep level of strategic thinking about how you do it, rather than just throwing it up there, and that really is where research and a strategic plan can help and come into play.”
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
