Study: More Hispanics listening to radio

Radio has added more than a million listeners over the past year, although a new change in the way Nielsen tracks the medium may skew year-to-year comparisons.

According to its radio listening report for March, Nielsen says radio now reaches 244.4 million Americans in an average week, up by more than 1.2 million listeners from the same month last year.

However, Nielsen notes that this is the first time it has reported findings measured Monday through Sunday from midnight to midnight, versus the old standard 6 a.m.-12 a.m. daypart.

“As a result of this change, historical comparisons or trends based on past RADAR press releases should not be made,” Nielsen writes.

All of that said, a good portion of the 1.2 million-listener growth for radio over the past year is year is the Hispanic audience, which added 574,000 listeners. Radio now reaches 93.6 percent of Hispanics on a weekly basis, slightly higher than the 92 percent national average.

While the number of weekly listeners is up, the average amount of time spent listening is flat at 2 hours, 41 minutes per day.

Tags: hispanics, hispanics radio, nielsen, nielsen radio, radio, radio hispanics, studies