Celebrating the Fourth: How Listening Changes During the 4th of July Week

06/30/2011
Posted by: Mike O'Malley
Category: country radio

The Mill Pond “river walk” gets a makeover around Halloween for fright walks. Santa can be counted on to ride through every street in the borough on a fire truck just before Christmas. And there’s a town-wide garage sale each spring.

But the 4^th of July in Milltown is something else altogether with no less than eight events this year: a fishing derby, two runs, a near two-hour parade, free music and food plus kids’ rides at Borough Park, Best Apple Pie and Most Patriotic House contests, and finally some pretty impressive fireworks to end the day.

If Milltown had a radio station, they’d be challenged to keep up with the borough.

Hopefully your station is not only keeping up with but playing a strong role in listeners’ lives this weekend.

Arbitron’s analysis of 30 PPM markets last year shows that the total radio listening (all formats) for July 4^th and 5^th dips below the year’s daily average while listening on July 1, 2, 6 and 7 exceeds that average.

The primary trigger of the drop is away from home listening that declines on the 3^rd through the 5^th while the amount of listening at home remains flat across the week.

However looking just at country, specifically among 25-54s in 5 randomly selected markets, holiday listening to the format is significantly more consistent across the week, staying relatively flat while the market’s total listening drops.

How will you take advantage of a competitor who lays in an extra day of voice tracking, plays a syndicated special and calls it good?

Have a great (and proud) 4^th!

Special thanks to Arbitron’s Jenny Tsao for providing the data and graphs.