Edison: Reaching Potential Voters with Audio Ads
According to data from Edison Research’s ongoing Share of Ear study, reaching potential voters with campaign ads should include spending on audio because “fully 84% of the voting-age public is reached by ad-supported audio daily.” Where to spend depends on which potential voters campaigns are trying to
reach. “Republicans listen to more AM/FM radio than other groups, with an index of 109 (or 9% more listening than average). The ad-supported spoken-word channels on SiriusXM are a particularly efficient place to find Republicans, with an index of 146. Meanwhile, podcasts stand out as the more efficient platform for reaching Democrats, indexing at 121. And what about those elusive Independents, who often tip an election? Both streaming music, and in particular music videos on YouTube, over-deliver for these potential voters, with indexes of 103 and 123 respectively.” Edison adds, “Regardless of the party that buyers are trying to reach with political ads, audio stands out as a superior pathway to reaching voters. Audio provides enormous audiences and often a far less cluttered political environment than other ad channels.”
largest share of listening, accounting for more than one-third of daily time with audio among those age 13+. The vast majority of that listening (31%) is to AM/FM over-the-air signals.” (The other 5% comes from radio streams.) Behind AM/FM in listening is streaming music (20%), YouTube (14%), podcasts (11%), SiriusXM (8%), owned music (4%), TV music channels (3%), audiobooks (3%) and other (1%). 
wanted to see where the listenership was coming from and based on the research it looks like Americans are making more time for podcasts mostly by reducing time spent with streaming video, streaming music and social media. Video podcasts have been a big discussion lately in the industry – whether its needed and cost effective, which is interesting because this new data sample showed that podcasts are pulling listener share primarily from YouTube’s audience – a reasonable motivation for their heightened focus on video podcasting to drive retention.” Interestingly, the study also concluded that the majority of radio listening happens out-of-home (68%), while the majority of podcast listening happens in the home (69%).