HBG Media Minute: Topics for Radio Hosts and Personalities
In a recent national radio study conducted Harker Bos Group we asked over 800 radio listeners about their favorite topics for hosts and personalities to feature in daily radio programming. Surveyed listeners were told to rate their interest on a 1-5 scale in a set list of general topics for radio hosts/personalities to discuss on air, with a “5” meaning very interested and a “1” meaning not interested at all. Let’s look at what topics came out on top…
Graph (below): Rate your interest in the following topics for radio hosts/personalities to discuss. (1-5 scale)
Right off the bat, ‘Weather’ is top of the heap in topic interest among radio listeners, 12% points ahead of the pack. We calculate these values by adding the high-passion scores, “5”, with “4” scores to gauge overall interest in each topic.
‘Humor Segments’ at 54% comes in at second, with listeners requesting a level of levity in radio programming.
‘Local Events’ ranks higher in interest than ‘Local News’ (52% vs. 47%), indicating that listeners want to know what events are happening in their community, but not necessarily hard news about their community. Reflecting broader national news media trends, interest in ‘National News’ is a notch higher than ‘Local News’, with national media narratives increasingly dominant in general news coverage.
We at Harker Bos Group are a market research firm that specializes in radio and TV. Reach out to Harker Bos Group today, so we can help you devise a plan to maximize audience growth and enhance your station’s brand.
Study conducted in May-June 2022.
- 800+ Respondents
- Ages 18-44
- 10+ Markets in the U.S.
This study is part of our a monthly Radio and Television research project called “HBG Media Minute”. It consists of monthly research studies that we conduct across the US and looks at between 500-2000 respondents in each study. We look forward to sharing our research each month at https://harkerbos.com/category/hbg-media-minute/.