Young Consumers Multitask at the Expense of Radio

MARCH 1, 2007

Internet users under 25 have multitasking in their DNA, but they may be tuning out radio.

Internet, cellphone and MP3 player usage is cutting into radio time among 15-to-24-year-olds, according to a study by Bridge Ratings.

The study covered multitasking during the second half of 2006 and found that Internet use is generally increasing at the expense of radio for 15-to-24-year-olds.

The group was not homogeneous in its responses. For 33% of 15-to-24-year-olds, radio consumption decreased to accommodate more Internet use. For 10%, radio consumption actually went up, at the expense other media. The overall trend for radio, though, was down.

Although online video viewing has not cut into TV time for the general population, nearly a quarter of the 15-to-24-year-olds surveyed by Bridge watched less conventional TV, while 22% said that they spent more time watching video on the Internet on such sites as YouTube, Yahoo! and MySpace, or streamed replays of prime time shows on TV network Web sites.

The study also found that young people are spending most of their total media time online (23%), more than watching television (22%), listening to the radio (16%) and listening to their MP3 players (19%).

In 2004, the Kaiser Family Foundation made one of the first comprehensive attempts to study the multitasking habits of children and teens as part of its "Generation M" media study. By asking study participants to keep detailed diaries of their activities, it found that children spent an average of 25% of their media time multitasking.

So, while they were using some form of media for six hours and 19 minutes of their day, their actual media exposure, including the time spent with more than one medium at a time, was 8.5 hours.

eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson cautions that marketers who are targeting adults cannot count on getting their undivided attention either.

"Because of the constant presence of computers in their lives," says Ms. Williamson, "teens may spend more of their media time multitasking than adults do. But multitasking extends across age groups."