Does Your Station Pass the Seatbelt Test?

Why it matters: Cash contests also reflect the broader role of radio stations as community pillars. When combined with strategic marketing, your brand is top of mind with more of the right people, so that they turn on your station before they put on their seatbelt.

Americans are stressed out financially. 72% of households are living paycheck to paycheck with less than $2,000 in savings.

Inflation has surged 20.7% in recent years and a family earning $50,000 annually in 2020, needs $60,339 to maintain their same lifestyle.

This climate amplifies the value of radio station cash contests. These prizes help listeners meet urgent financial needs like paying bills or covering emergency expenses.

The significance of station contests extends beyond financial support. They are a proven way to enhance listener engagement and loyalty. By combining strategic marketing with contesting, we cultivate habits that generate daily cume among listeners – new, lapsed and existing – as they forge stronger connections with your station content and talent.

In today’s fragmented, noisy and fiercely competitive marketplace, capturing the attention of consumers and encouraging them to engage with your brand is more challenging than ever. Contests are dynamic tools that not only break through the clutter, but also drive sampling, fostering brand awareness and loyalty.

This level of active engagement positions your brand to be top of mind with more of the right people, so that turning on your station happens before they put their seatbelt on in the car or their lunch in the refrigerator at work.

The Seatbelt Test isn’t about consumer safety – it’s about maximizing your ratings and subsequent revenue – each time listeners get into the car.

We deploy Reach and Frequency strategies on the employed heavy listeners with the most listening to give. The people available to a specific format who get up and commute to work.

Understanding these radio fundamentals, we maintain and license a single contest trademark: Double Your Paycheck^®. Employed radio listeners let their imaginations run wild spending an extra paycheck. It’s a great example of Theater of the Mind.

Of course, there are a variety of station contests that drive results. We’ve been fortunate to partner with local brands to give away $150 million (and growing) across North America and helped create countless memorable moments with winning listeners on-air.

It’s the power and magic of radio.

Let’s go further, faster, together.

Go Deeper on Americans living paycheck to paycheck along with an inflation calculator.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Tony Bannon, Jen Clayborn, and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thank you for driving radio forward.

Onward,

Andrew Curran
President and CEO
DMR/Interactive

Double Your Paycheck is a registered trademark of DMR/Interactive. 

What Makes TikTok Tick?

Why it matters: TikTok has grown 1,200% since 2018 (11.2 to 150 million active users). Despite this meteoric rise, it still boils down to the few who matter most (just like radio listening).

According to Pew Research Center, 75% of TikTok users create just 2% of the content. That means 25% of the users in the U.S. generate 98% of the content.

What does it take to be part of this prolific user segment? 7 posts. That’s not posts per week or per month. That’s 7 posts ever.

Digital media platforms just like local media are predicated upon the few who matter most.

The impact of small groups can be found across your own data sets: in your ratings, your streaming numbers, time-shifted consumption, podcast downloads, station app usage and group contest players.

We help clients recruit, identify and super-serve the few who matter most to your success.

Let’s go further, faster, together.

Go Deeper on these TikTok heavies with findings from Pew.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Tony Bannon, Jen Clayborn, and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thank you for driving radio forward.

Onward,

Andrew Curran
President and CEO
DMR/Interactive

WHO ACTUALLY CARES ABOUT SPORTS?

Why it matters: Despite the non-stop buzz around March Madness and NFL free agency, most Americans don’t actually care about sports. Fortunately, there are small groups of fans who make up the difference. The same is true for radio.

March Madness is expected to once again break records this year, yet 80% of American adults won’t fill out an NCAA bracket.

As for the NFL, despite the frenzy of Taylor Swift mania converging with the Chiefs winning another Super Bowl, 40% of Americans didn’t bother to watch the game.

As someone who did play-by-play at Boston College on WZBC-FM and began my radio career at ESPN in Bristol, these numbers are hard to comprehend.

Yet, Pew Research confirms that 60% of Americans (including 70% of women and 52% of men) don’t follow sports and 51% think sports receive too much attention.

The number one reason for this lack of interest isn’t the pace of play, political activism by athletes or concerns about player safety; it’s simply, “I’m just not interested.”

So, what’s the engine driving our cultural obsession with sports? It turns out it’s the same force that powers your radio stations: Super Fans.

According to Pew, just 7% of Americans are Super Fans who follow sports closely and talk about it every day.

In fact, they are a unique breed of enthusiasts who are the lifeblood of teams and athletes with the power to shape fortunes. Their commitment transcends casually checking scores or occasional game attendance.

Instead, they are the ones with season tickets in hand, team colors painted on their faces, and an undying loyalty that lights up social media, fuels ratings and fills stadiums.

While only 10% of men and 3% of women classify as Super Fans to sports, their impact is disproportionate to their numbers.

They are the vocal minority who steer conversations and create a buzz that attracts even the most casual viewers during playoff seasons or major sporting events. Their passion is infectious, often igniting the spirits of potential fans and creating a ripple effect that benefits the sports industry at large.

These Super Fans fuel the very essence of what makes sports a pivotal part of culture and community.

The same is true for radio. According to Nielsen Audio, among the 70,000+ Portable People Meters nationwide, the top 10% deliver 47% of all quarter-hours, while nearly 10,000 PPM panelists don’t listen to the radio at all.

Another insight Pew identified about these Super Fans with a parallel to radio is that nearly half cited cheering for an individual player (LeBron James, Joe Burrow, Caitlin Clark, or Shohei Ohtani) as a major reason they follow sports. Similarly, your on-air talent can keep your Heavy P1s coming back and driving daily cume.

A majority of Americans are indifferent to sports, as is true of politics, movies, and just about everything else. Radio is not exempt. Brand strength and monetization doesn’t come from everyone; it comes from the few who matter most. It’s no accident that this is our constant refrain and the cornerstone of DMR/Interactive’s 360-degree Listener Engagement Strategy.

Pursuing everybody? That bracket is busted. 

Go Deeper on the Super Fans who drive sports.

On behalf of Catherine Jung, Tony Bannon, Jen Clayborn, and everyone at DMR/Interactive, thank you for driving radio forward.

Onward,

Andrew Curran
President and CEO
DMR/Interactive