WOWO versus Local TV

In my continuing informal series of information about advertising with the radio station I work for, WOWO, in Fort Wayne, Indiana, I am going to share more research info that attempts to address the question some local business owners face:

Should I buy radio ads or television ads?

More specifically:

Should I use WOWO Radio or one of the Local TV stations?

I have access to local radio station ratings but not local TV station ratings, so I keep an eye out for research that fills in the gap of what I know.

Let’s start with WOWO Radio.

Overall, based on the population figures and the listenership numbers, I know that between 25 percent and 40 percent of the total Metro Fort Wayne population listens to WOWO every week. In the spring ratings report that was released, WOWO has the largest audience of all the Fort Wayne radio stations again.

As a news and talk radio station, WOWO’s audience is adults, or grown-ups as I like to say.

I also know that 80% of our 100,000 weekly listeners are age 45 and older.

Compare that to TV viewing.

Overall, screen-viewing has increased, but the way we watch and what we watch has changed dramatically in the past decade.

Cutting the cord, or not having a TV at all was the trend of Gen Z and it has been moving to older generations too.

My millennial kids don’t watch local TV.  They get their news, weather, information and entertainment from a different kind of screen.  Netflix is huge.  So is YouTube. But local news? Nope.

Recently my wife and I were spending the evening with some older friends in their 60’s and they confessed the same thing.  They watch more on their iPhones (including full length movies!) each week than they do live local television.

I don’t have the figures for local TV viewership like I do for local radio listenership, but I saw a report that shows that my antidotal observations are part of a trend that is not going away.

MarketingCharts.com reports that  “Roughly Half of Households Headed by People Ages 55+ Stream Video”

Nearly 80% of 18 to 44 year olds watch streaming video, and while that is not surprising, the fact that older adults have moved to what I call “on-demand programming” has to be alarming to those in the television business.  At least the local TV broadcasters.

So here’s what my assessment for businesses that are considering television advertising to invite Fort Wayne area consumers to do business with them….

Be very, very careful and cautious.

Local Newscasts and a few sporting events are about the only television programming that is exclusive to the TV stations.  Everything else, we can time shift and watch on our own schedule.  When I watch a show like NCIS after it originally was broadcast by my local CBS station, I don’t see your local TV ads.

Ask your television sales person, “How many people will see my TV ad?”  Go deeper and ask them how they came up with that number.

If you want more help on deciding if an advertising campaign on TV is a good idea, contact me and I’ll gladly help you sort out the offer and teach you what to ask and look for.

Or better yet, let’s talk about inviting WOWO radio listeners to become your customers. We have 100,000 local listeners.  How many do you want as your customers?