Walrus Research

Reality Has A Way Of Eventually Getting Your Attention

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Audience 2010

Grow The Audience

The Big Trends

Core Values By Format

Localism And NPR News

Givers And Giving

Do You Picture NPR Listeners As Obese?

The NPR audience is distinguished by its values and lifestyles, including a set of socially responsible behaviors involving life-long learning, health and fitness.

In fact, you can predict the prevalence of NPR listeners in a population if you know the rate of obesity or smoking.

Obesity and NPR Listeners

The Aging Public Radio Audience

Garrison Keillor, who does his show in front of a live audience, has observed t
hat each year he sees more balding grey heads out there.

Yet if Terry Gross, Robert Siegel, Scott Simon or Tom and Ray Magliozzi could
have seen their listeners over the years, they would have observed the same
process.

The public radio audience continues to age.


The Aging Audience

Mega Trends

The Public Radio Tracking Study

Mega trends are like global warming -- gradual but relentless, fundamental.

Even before the events of 9/11, public radio was changing and growing based on the strength of network news programming.  In most major markets there was a station that had begun moving towards a coherent format of news and information.

Public radio listeners found less value in commercial radio.  The core composition of NPR news stations increased, leading to more listener support.


Mega Trends - The Public Radio Tracking Study


Strategic Differentiation Of NPR News Formats

SRG commissioned this paper to open a discussion about the future of the NPR news format in major markets. 

Grounded in hundreds of research studies over the years, we propose a visionary strategy for further audience growth -- two or more NPR news stations per market, sharply differentiated by generational cohort or psychographic segmentation.
Strategic Differentiation Of NPR News Formats