Last year, Nielsen updated its listening-qualifying time to require only three minutes of listening to earn a quarter-hour for its radio ratings.
While speaking on a Radio Advertising Bureau webinar on Wednesday, Nielsen Audio’s Vice President of Audience Insights, Jon Miller, said the data and reactions to the changes have been overwhelmingly positive.
“Nielsen is very pleased with what we’ve seen,” Miller said. “All these things have come to pass — more ad impressions, higher average audience, more daily cume at a station level — which helps improve stability [and] expanded advertiser choice, because we see different dayparts and formats having higher audiences than we traditionally captured.”
After the change, total listening has increased 14% across all demographics.
“The bottom line is that tide has risen for all boats — all formats, all dayparts,” Miller says. “Whether you’re talking about Black panelists [or] Hispanic panelists inside language breakouts, we’re seeing higher radio use, higher average audiences across the board.”
The largest increases in demographic listening came in the Persons 6+ sector. It rose 14%, while both the Persons 25-54 and Persons 35-64 demos increased by 13%. Persons 18-34 saw the smallest growth at 9% overall.
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