Regional Mexican Radio Tops Among U.s. Hispanics

While regional Mexican is the favored radio format among Hispanics in the U.S., top 40 radio—an English-language format—comes in second.

Arbitron's recently released 2003 edition of Hispanic Radio Today: How America Listens to Radio tracks radio listening patterns in the U.S. For the first time, it combined consumer data from research firm Scarborough Research to additionally provide detailed information on the consumer habits of Hispanic radio listeners in 2002.

A finding of the Arbitron study is that Spanish-language radio continues to flourish, as does the Hispanic population in the U.S. Today, there are 699 Spanish-language stations in the country, up from 564 only four years ago.

That number represents 5.7% of the 13,685 stations in the country and represents a growth that's a little faster than the overall market, according to Thom Mocarsky, Arbitron VP of communications.

"Spanish formats are booming in terms of their growth over time," Mocarsky says. "What we're seeing is confirmation of what we knew all along: Hispanics are avid radio listeners—far more than the average."

For one, Hispanics listen to radio more than their non-Hispanic counterparts, averaging about 19 hours per week vs. 16 hours per week for non-Hispanics. When listening to Spanish-language stations only, the average jumps to almost 22 hours per week.

In addition, Spanish radio's total "average quarter-hour persons" share, which measures the number of people listening to a particular station for more than five minutes at a time, has risen to 8.1% of the nation's total in 2002, up 1.1% from 2001.

When it comes to Spanish-language formats, regional Mexican reigns, just as it does in record sales. The format accounts for 17.7% of all Hispanic listening, up 3.1% from the year before.

But among Hispanic listeners in general, the second-most favored format is English-language top 40, with 14.6% of the audience. Spanish contemporary radio ranks third, with 13.4%—up 2.5% from the year before—while another English-language format, adult contemporary, follows with 8.2% of the audience. Tropical trails with just 6.1%, and Tejano has a mere 1.4% of listenership, probably because the format is mostly confined to Texas.

Two key programming issues stand out in the study. The first is that while the number of Hispanics aged 18-64 listening to radio is fairly consistent, those 65 and older are the least likely among Hispanics to listen to radio.

Perhaps as important, more than 80% of Hispanics who listen to top 40 English-language radio are under 35, with teens accounting for one-third of all Hispanic top 40 listening. These findings bolster the perennial allegation from many in the record industry that Spanish radio—which is reluctant to play new artists—does not serve the needs of a younger audience.

"The key here is that people who are young prefer the latest stuff, and they will turn to [top 40] as well as Hispanic radio [for it]," Mocarsky says. But, he cautions, "just because they listen to [top 40] radio doesn't mean they don't listen to Spanish-language radio."

Arbitron does not factor in language preference in its market report. Hispanic households, Mocarsky says, are defined as specified by the household members. And although Spanish preference is tracked, it will likely not be used in market reports until 2006 (Billboard, Nov. 30, 2002).