Radio listening, both in the United States and in this country, has made a remarkable recovery during the past ten years. Not so many years ago radio stations in the States were going for a song and then they started being able to sell early morning time at ‘A’ rates and they have not looked back since. The impact of ITV in this country was to cause 85 per cent of the listeners who switched to TV not to listen to any radio. The position has now changed and Radio Luxembourg figures have steadily climbed back over the past decade.
The other marked characteristic is that even in the pre-ITV days the Summer audience for Radio Luxembourg dropped sharply compared with the Spring and Autumn. This is no longer the case and the average nightly audience listening at some time during the evening is 6¼ million for Spring, 6 million for Summer and 6 million also for Autumn.
The average age of the Radio Luxembourg audience is low. This augurs well for the future. Habits caught young we carry with us through the rest of our lives and this will certainly prove to be the case with radio listening.
Radios, gramophones and tape recorders are now a normal part of the equipment of the home and the lesson is that always when technical facilities such as these are available they tend to be used and the habit persists.
Social Surveys (Gallup Poll) have been regularly making surveys for Radio Luxembourg since 1952. During the intervening twelve years we have made at least 250 surveys, using the same methods as we have used during that period for our successful election forecasts. The stability of the figures throughout a year for some programmes has been surprising; there are instances where the figures for a programme in the course of twelve months have varied by no more than 0.1 per cent. This indicates an exceedingly faithful and loyal audience.
Radio Luxembourg have earned their continued success by technical excellence in transmission and by clearly defining to themselves their potential market and consistently going after it.
SOCIAL SURVEYS (GALLOP POLL) LTD,
211 Regent Street, London, W.1
