'To buyers, qualitative data means income, buying habits and so on. Maybe advertises and buyers should expand that definition to use what political campaigns use, which is, what values do the listeners hold? Maybe I have a product I want to associate with family, sincerity and religion.'

 

 
For country listeners,
it's God and country
A look at their values in post-Sept. 11 America 
By Gabriel Spitzer

    In the campaign for the hearts and minds of country radio listeners, advertisers should consider appealing to God and country.
    A new study from Edison Research shows that country listeners are patriotic and family-oriented, but only slightly more conservative than the general population.
   The study, "Winning the Country Music Campaign," uses a novel methodology. Edison recruited Democratic and Republican political pollsters to conduct the research, bringing to bear the techniques of a campaign poll.
   The results expand the notion of qualitative data to encompass country listeners’ views and values, including what they like about country radio and country music in general.
   This last distinction is important, as the country radio audience and the people who buy country music records are not the same.
    For one, the radio audience skews slightly older: 56 percent of frequent country radio listeners are 50 or older, compared to 50 percent of frequent country music buyers.
    Surprisingly, the radio listeners lean Republican, with 37 percent favoring the Republican party and 34 percent favoring the Democrats, while country music buyers lean Democratic, with 39 percent preferring the Democratic party and 35 percent preferring the Republicans.
    Country radio listeners like the format because it is "generally positive" and has a "comfortable style," while music buyers are more interested in particular performers and the genre’s upbeat, fun style.
    Both groups agree that what they like most about country music is that it is "sincere" or "keeps it real."
    This attribute, coupled with the overall values that both groups said were most important to them—religion (44 percent), family (40 percent) and compassion (32 percent)—would seem to make the country format a smart advertising vehicle post-Sept. 11.
    "Country music is especially well-positioned in the post-Sept. 11 world," says Joe Lenski, executive vice president of Edison Media Research.
    "The values the listeners rate at the top are religion, family and compassion. When you ask them what attributes they apply to country music, they're sincerity, keeping it real, and telling stories. So if you want to use a vehicle that’s rated high for sincerity and realism, those are values listeners attribute to country music."
    Lenski says that media buyers ought to take into account the sort of information this research has uncovered about listeners.
    "To buyers, qualitative data means income, buying habits and so on. Maybe advertises and buyers should expand that definition to use what political campaigns use, which is, what values do the listeners hold? Maybe I have a product I want to associate with family, sincerity and religion. Then country radio is a good vehicle to use," Lenski says.
    Moreover, country radio listeners overwhelmingly support the new patriotic bent that country radio has taken since Sept. 11.
    Seventy-six percent said they like the more patriotic themes, music and promotions on country radio stations, and want them to continue. Just 19 percent said they had had enough.
    This kind of research may be especially pertinent in uncertain times.
    "From the advertisers’ perspective, they’re being very sensitive right now to the way Americans feel about these types of things," says Mary Ann Slepavic, vice president of research at Interep. Slepavic has conducted a number of studies for Interep about the country music radio format.
    Comparing country music purchasers to country radio listeners, it quickly becomes apparent that country radio has not fully tapped into the genre’s fan base.
    "Radio is under-performing the music as a whole," Lenski says. "To music fans, country radio tends to sound artificial and slick."
    That slickness evidently doesn’t sit well with the music buyers, who rate sincerity or "keeping it real" as country music’s most important attribute.
     "You see that too in the statistics," says Lenski. "While music sales are down, radio listening seems to be in a steeper decline. There’s always this debate at the country radio seminars: the stations blame Nashville and say, get us some hits. And the Nashville labels say, we have the music, you just aren’t playing it."
    Among both listeners and purchasers, 68 percent said they had positive feelings toward "country music," while 9 percent said they had negative feelings, for a net positive of 59 percent.
    That makes it slightly more popular than "country music radio stations," with a net positive of 53 percent, and "today’s country singers," which garnered a net positive of 51 percent.
    Of the 11 items on this portion of the survey, only one out-rated the country music items: George W. Bush, with a net positive of 64 percent.
    The study is based on a sample of 1,009 respondents, surveyed between Feb. 2 and Feb. 4. Non-radio listeners and people who said they both never bought country music albums and never listened to country radio were screened out. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percent, at 95 percent confidence.


PROFILE OF COUNTRY RADIO LISTENERS
 FIGURES GIVEN IN PERCENTAGES
  Total
sample		 "Strong"
country
listeners		 "Weak"
country
listeners		 Country
rejecters
All respondents 100 36 29 35
Northeast 19 14 19 25
South 36 41 36 20
Midwest 23 26 23 20
West 22 20 21 25
Men 50 44 54 51
Women 50 56 46 49
Age 18-34 25 20 24 29
Age 35-49 26 23 28 27
Age 50-64 28 29 29 26
Age 65+ 21 27 20 18
Democrats 35 34 35 36
Independents 25 26 26 23
Republicans 38 37 39 39
Liberal 27 23 28 27
Moderate 28 33 24 28
Conservative 41 36 44 41
Musicians 28 23 32 32
MP3 users 19 12 20 26
Exposure to "O Brother" soundtrack 36 40 34 32
Watched CMA Award Show 37 53 40 17
Source: "Winning the Country Music Campaign," presented by Edison Media Research, conducted by American Viewpoint Inc. and Cooper & Secrest Associates.

 

PROFILE OF COUNTRY MUSIC PURCHASERS
 FIGURES GIVEN IN PERCENTAGES
  Total
sample		 "Strong"
country
purchasers		 "Weak"
country
purchasers		 Country
resisters
All Responses 100 23 27 50
Northeast 19 19 16 21
South 36 37 39 34
Midwest 23 21 25 23
West 22 11 20 23
Men 50 41 49 54
Women 50 59 51 46
Working women 30 40 27 26
Age 18-34 25 22 14 27
Age 35-49 26 26 28 24
Age 50-64 28 30 29 27
Age 65+ 21 20 22 21
Men under 50 28 20 29 28
Men over 50 23 22 20 25
Women under 50 23 30 21 22
Women over 50 26 29 29 24
Democrats 35 39 31 35
Republicans 38 35 37 39
MP3 users 19 14 20 21
Exposure to "O Brother" soundtrack 36 47 34 31
Watched CMA Award Show 37 52 42 27
Source: "Winning the Country Music Campaign," presented by Edison Media Research, conducted by American Viewpoint Inc. and Cooper & Secrest Associates.

 

"AMERICAN VALUES"
 FIGURES GIVEN IN PERCENTAGES
  Total 18-49 50+ "Strong"
country
listeners		 "Weak"
country
listeners		 Country
resisters
Religion 44 37 49 47 40 43
Family 40 43 38 41 39 39
Compassion 32 33 32 31 33 32
Personal freedom 31 34 28 27 33 30
Patriotism 25 21 30 28 25 26
Financial Success 14 18 10 12 14 16
Source: "Winning the Country Music Campaign," presented by Edison Media Research, conducted by American Viewpoint Inc. and Cooper & Secrest Associates.
Includes both country music purchasers and country radio listeners.

 

WORDS AND PHRASES
DESCRIBING COUNTRY RADIO/MUSIC
 FIGURES GIVEN IN PERCENTAGES

Country radio

Describes…

Country music
Strong Weak Total Total Strong Weak
37 25 26

Station praise

 - - -
15 17 20

Station criticism

 - - -
19 11 13

Comfortable style

 18 26 14
13 12 12

Upbeat and fun

 28 32 16
1 5 10

Non-participants

 - - -
2 7 9

General criticism

 30 9 24
4 8 9

Music criticism

 - - -
12 9 8

General positive

 8 10 8
9 11 8

Affirms values

 7 10 5
7 5 6

Sincere/keeping it real

 34 40 28
4 4 5

Neutral

 - - -
- - -

Other

 6 3 6
- - -

Affirms tradition

 3 2 3
Source: "Winning the Country Music Campaign," presented by Edison Media Research, conducted by American Viewpoint Inc. and Cooper & Secrest Associates.

 

March 8, 2002 © 2002 Media Life

-Gabriel Spitzer is a staff writer for Media Life.


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