Eighteen years ago, when the millennium was fresh, Maine small business owners had relatively few media options available for advertising their goods and services. There was local Portland radio. Local TV. Local Newspaper. Local Magazines.

It’s hard to believe in the year 2000 there were no iPads, iPods, iPhones, Facebook, YouTube, Pandora, Spotify, and Sirius/XM, Hulu, Roku, Netflix, Fire Sticks, Kindles, Nooks, Fitbits, Apple Watches, or countless other devices and distractions.

The inundation of new media since then has taken a toll on most legacy media. Radio, however, has been the exception. Awesome news for Maine businesses who depend on Portland radio advertising to deliver customers.

In 2000, radio reached 93% of all consumers each week. Year after year, radio’s reach has remained constant. A new study released last week by Nielsen, shows the love for traditional AM/FM radio has not wavered.

According to Nielsen’s Total Audience Report of the first quarter of 2018, radio remains the #1 reach medium.

In southern Maine, Portland radio has the same omnipresence. Last week, according to Nielsen, nearly 700,000 adult consumers tuned into a local radio station. That’s far more than other advertising media that small business owners can utilize.

The President of a Maine based technical school, is a big fan of radio advertising. His company spends hundreds of thousands of dollars per year running commercials to attract students. He is concerned, though, that despite radio’s stable reach, his target audience is spending less time listening to traditional AM/FM and more time listening to online services like Pandora or Spotify. This, in fact, is not the case.

The chart below from The Nielsen Total Audience Report indicates, like reach, the time spent listening to AM/FM radio has remained stable. Radio’s durability is facilitated by the report’s key finding: consumers media consumption, overall, is increasing.

When presented with similar information a few year’ back, media expert Doug Schoen wrote in Forbes, “You wouldn’t know it from all the media coverage focused on streaming video and streaming music, but radio actually has the most reach among American media consumers. 93% of adults listen to the radio each week as compared to 87% who watch TV, a substantive difference.”

Mr. Schoen went on to advise, “The implications of results like these are profound for the communications and advertising industries and as a marketing professional with over 35 years of experience, I found this data nothing short of fascinating. It’s quite clear that we should all be paying more attention to radio, its reach and potential to help our businesses. It’s doing the job with expert efficiency.”

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