It’s Still Radio
By now you’ve heard the story that supposedly President Trump, as the coronavirus outbreak was beginning, wanted to take his message directly to the American people. So he suggested to advisers that he do a live, two-hour daily radio program. That’s right, the president as talk show host. He’d present information and take calls from listeners. He was only dissuaded from this, the story goes, because it might go up against Rush Limbaugh and he didn’t want to take away from the work Rush does. While KXEL airs Rush live, other stations run him tape-delayed; in Iowa, for example, two hours late. That means it would be hard for the president to find a two hour time where he’s not going up against Rush somewhere. So he went with a different idea…the daily news briefings that many watch on TV.
The president is quite media savvy, and he knows the power of what I call the world’s first mass media. You might think newspapers, and while they have always reached a number of people, folks read different stories at different times. Radio was the first, and is still the most portable, way to reach large numbers of people with the same message at the same time. And each time something new came along, from television to the internet, people have predicted radio’s demise. Numbers, however, tell a different story.
92 percent of American adults listen to the radio each week…more than television at 88 percent, or smartphone users at 79 percent. Nearly 80 percent have a radio in both their home and in their car. They spend more than a dozen hours listening, on average, each week. And it’s hardly an old person’s medium, as members of Generation Z, those under age 22, listen to radio more now than the Millenials did when they were that age.
So the president is on to something regarding how important radio is in getting information to the public…and for what it’s worth, he’s welcome here any time.
