Every year Beloit College (Beloit, WI) puts together a compelling list that is often a reality check for those of us north of 40 years-old.
Taking a look at their incoming freshmen (The Class of 2016), their team creates a list of things these young people – born in 1994 – think, believe, and experience – or haven’t experienced.
This is often a great tool, especially for radio stations (and other media brands) that appeal to 18-24 year-olds because it can be very helpful in overall messaging, communication, prep, promo creation, and social media connectivity. The list is frequently funny, clever, and loaded with items that make you think (mostly about how old you are).
This year, there is no shortage of fun “mindset” items on the Beloit list. Here are a few that made me smile:
- Robert DeNiro is thought of as Greg Focker’s long-suffering father-in-law, not as Vito Corleone or Jimmy Conway.
- They have never seen an airplane “ticket.”
- There has always been football in Jacksonville but never in Los Angeles.
And a Detroit favorite:
- Little Caesar has always been proclaiming “Pizza Pizza.”
But when I read through this list of mostly whimsical facts and observations, #15 jumped out at me. And it did not make me smile:
Never listen to music while driving a car? And “really have no use for radio at all?”
As regular readers of this blog know, I am a fan of radio, but certainly not an apologist. When I believe the industry is doing something lame, I point it out. When I feel that opportunities are going untapped, it is often a hot topic in this space.
But this is a cheap shot, undeserved, and factually incorrect.
*The fact is, nearly 90% of all 12-24s in America listen to broadcast radio every week. That’s documented by Arbitron’s national numbers. More than 22 million 12-17 year-olds listen to radio every week, while nearly 27 million 18-24s – the “college years” demographic – are still tuning in AM/FM radio even though they have iPods, smartphones, and tablets available to them.
The creators of the Mindset List – Tom McBride and Ron Nief – are academics, and should know better. On a video that accompanies the list, they refer to radio as “almost irrelevant.”
These guys make the media rounds, giving interviews and promoting Beloit College and the list. There’s a book, podcasts, speeches – a cottage industry based on the Mindset List. They even recommend using it as a teaching tool and as a conversation starter – both good ideas in principle.
But how about a list that has been vetted for accuracy? How about list items that simply aren’t made up?
So to the geniuses behind the Mindset List, continue to have fun with us and your class of incoming freshmen. But when the world laughs with you and raises its collective eyebrows at some of your factoids, you have an obligation to get it right.
*Source: Arbitron National Regional Database, Fall 2011 | Full week total national reach | Teens 12-17: 89.9 cume rating, 22,144,900 cume | Persons 18-24: 89.9 cume rating, 26,993,900.
Thanks to Arbitron’s Jon Miller for providing this data.
UPDATE: It has been brought to our attention that #15 on the Mindset List has now been corrected. Here’s how it now reads:
“While still fans of music on radio, they often listen to it on their laptops or replace it with music downloaded onto their MP3s and iPods.”
Smart move, but the Webcast on the site has not yet been changed, and still reflects the tone and substance of the original wording.
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I showed your article to my kids which led to an interesting discussion…
While #15 is factually incorrect, I can say as a parent of teenage daughters I understand the reason behind the statement. My daughters don’t listen to the radio…not at home and not in the car. They have their iPod’s/iPhones ready to plug in before the car is started. When I asked my 16 year old how she finds out about new music she said “YouTube and Pandora”. She and her friends share video links of new songs and bands. Even though I’ve been in radio for as long as I have, my daughters are quick to point out that, to quote my oldest daughter, “there’s nothing good on the radio.” That hurt! But that’s what she thinks. Their 2 biggest complaints: 1) Stations play the same songs over and over, 2) The DJ’s just talk to talk, they don’t say anything important.
It’s not what I wanted to hear from my kids who know what I do for a living, but that’s what they think. Radio may still reach 90%, but after talking to my kids I wonder how much of that is out of convenience and not because they seek it out. We all have some work to do, that’s for sure.
Jason, welcome to working in radio and having kids. Mine are both in their twenties, but your comment stirred up all sorts of complaints they lodged along the way – and continue to do. My son thinks every 2-person morning show is “Two Deuchebags In The Morning.” But they continue to listen to radio in the car, and it’s more a part of their lives than they may admit. Radio has some serious image problems – and it also has reality problems, too. More personalization, customization, and digital variety might help kids like yours better connect to what radio provides. But that’s another reason why this Beloit list is important, too. The perception will become reality. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
By the way, the changed #15:
“While still fans of music on radio, they often listen to it on their laptops or replace it with music downloaded onto their MP3s and iPods.”
My kids are a bit older, 18, 22, and 28. It’s clear to me that they do not use radio to discover new music. That is done now through social networking, iTunes, Pandora and Spotify, and especially YouTube. Most new songs are available as free music videos on YouTube. That is becoming a much more important social network than Facebook. The little progress bar on iTunes tells them which songs are popular and they’ll sample them, along with the related artists suggested below. They are discovering “new” music on the radio, however, but it’s not NEW music. Two of them are listening to classic rock radio and they totally love it. They’ve both told me that today’s music sucks compared to the classic rock era. I think games like Rock Band turned them on to that music and they really love it. But even with that format, Spotify and Pandora give them everything they want, without commercials. My oldest listens to morning shows and talk radio because they feature unique non-music entertainment. I think radio is a) stuck in the obsolete top 40 mindset and, b) moving in the wrong direction by putting music ahead of the unique entertainment content that can only be provided by talented hosts. Even when I think back to my own youth it was the talent that attracted me to radio. The boss jocks and the social interaction interested me much more than the music. But radio was my only source of new music discovery back then, mainly because there was no Internet. Honestly, if I were 16 right now, I’d be all over Spotify, which looks better to me than Pandora, and especially YouTube. In fact, I am addicted to YouTube anyway, and I’m 59. I check out music stations because I’m in the business, but like most people my age I always gravitate to talk radio. I’m not sure that the current fad of gaming PPM is good for radio in the long term.
Joe. some great observations here. Radio has some issues, to be sure. And yes, the elements that differentiated CKLW from WKNR were personality-based. The music was the music even back then. Thanks for taking the time to add perspective to radio’s ongoing challenge to remain relevant.
A lot of this has to do with environment. When I was a college freshman in 1999, I never listened to radio. Napster had come out and we were all consuming music at an extremely fast rate like today. We could share mp3s on Ohio State’s local network as well as on Napster. For most of us, it was the first time we had high speed internet instead of a dial-up modem. It has everything to do with not being left out. If everyone in your dorm is on Spotify, you’re going to download it. Spotify has the same functionality as Napster. The difference being once your subscription ends, you lose the music. So I don’t think young college kids saying they don’t listen to the radio is much of a red flag. It’s just a product of the environment they currently live in.
Agree, Eric, and something happens when they graduate and join the rest of us – especially on that long L.A. commute. You remember “The Bedroom Project.” We saw the same phenomenon in dorms and college apartments. Thank goodness for the car (although the “digital dash” and more choice opens up another can of digital worms). Thanks for adding to the conversation.
hahaha. Fact-based reality. That’s rich. And that’s not mirthful laughing on my part. A significant part of the radio business has been happy to bank large cash by promoting content that is, um, flexible, with fact-based reality. It has not put the field in a position where we are strong with making the claim that we are committed to this standard. You are correct to make these points, Fred, and it’s a tough field for us to stake our claim.
Thanks, Mikel, and I know you will continue to fight the good fight here in the Motor City. Thanks for your passion & your comment.
It looks like Jennifer Waits of Radio Survivor may have been the only one to note the incongruity of the list coming from a college that has been operating a radio station (WBCR-FM) for decades; see https://www.radiosurvivor.com/2012/08/21/beloit-mindset-list-claims-first-year-college-students-have-no-use-for-radio-at-all.
Eric, thanks for pointing out yet another interesting paradox.
While I agree that the original wording was a bit flip and dismissive for an academic institution, and I admire the way you fight for the industry, I believe Beloit’s sentiment is correct. For a few years, I programmed WBRU, Providence’s commercial alternative station that was run almost entirely by college students. There, I saw the canary in the coal mine. It wasn’t that we had trouble attracting listeners or advertisers. We had trouble recruiting college students to work for the station. Radio just wasn’t cool or relevant to them anymore.
So often, I see my former broadcasting colleagues speak as if radio has a content problem. “If only radio figures out the right songs to play or comes up with more creative promotions, it will be fine.” Radio doesn’t have a content problem. Radio has a technology problem. It is a mass medium in a world where the Internet and mobile devices have made it increasingly easy to receive tailored content. Because of its technological limitations, radio can only give us the 50 songs that the masses can agree on. My iPhone can give me thousands that are specific to me. Older generations may be willing to put up with radio’s limitations out of force of habit or a sense of nostalgia, but younger music consumers will not.
Since leaving radio’s ranks and becoming a regular listener again, I have found myself listening to radio more than I thought I would. I have discovered that my complaints are the same that my listeners lodged against me: too much repetition, too any commercials, dj’s who talk more about radio station promotions than the things I care about. When I do listen to radio instead of plugging my iPhone into my car stereo, it’s usually out of convenience. I don’t listen to radio because I am actively seeking out the content; I do it because I can’t be bothered to plug my phone into the dashboard on a short drive. I never listen to the radio unless I am in a car.
I agree with Joe Knapp that one of the few things that can keep radio relevant is great talent. But radio has consciously made a decision to silence its talent in favor of tighter playlists. I find the talent that I listen to on a regular basis in podcasts, such as WTF’s Marc Marron and the hosts of the Slate Political Gabfest. Both of these shows have recently been picked up by radio, but my listening habits have cemented – I download them to my mobile device.
Finally, a comment regarding the use of Arbitron data to defend radio listenership. For years, my bonus was based on Arbitron ratings. Sometimes I hit my bonus and sometimes I didn’t, but I can tell you that I have no confidence in the ability of Arbitron to accurately reflect the listening habits of the general public. In a world where the Internet has dramatically improved our ability to gather data, Arbitron’s methodology is simpled too flawed to be reliable.
I loved my time in radio. It was some of the most fun I have ever had in my life. But I left because it was obvious to me that technology was changing, and I believed radio wasn’t going to be able to stay relevant despite the best programming from the indutry’s best minds.
Completely agree! Love those podcasts as well, and what I find amusing is that these people doing podcasts have zero radio experience. . . but sound better than “professionals” on radio stations.
I also recommend the Keith & The Girl podcast.
Seth, there’s no disputing many of your points. Radio has some profound challenges posed by its digital competitors on the one hand and its own consolidated greed and arrogance on the other. Put together, it’s a perfect storm that is fueled by the need to get ratings to sell spots that will run this weekend. But in spite of all this disruptiveness, the Beloit list is just way too sweeping and off-base. I don’t dispute the misfires and miscalculations, nor do I deny that part of why people listen to the radio is convenience, simplicity, and ease. This is a well-respected, much-talked-about piece of American that has become a pop culture conversation piece, and I felt compelled to call them out. Even with a correction, the damage has been done. Good to hear your “voice” again, and hope that you’re well.
Forget the kids. I’m a 30 year old female and I’ve been in the radio business over 10 years and even I don’t listen to the radio anymore. It’s Spotify and podcasts for me. Why? Because there’s nothing worth listening to on the radio. And trust me, if I feel this way, the average 18 year old feels even stronger.
I feel the problem is that the same old middle aged men get to keep making all the decisions. The safe decisions, to hit on their comfort zone they felt in their hay day. The goofy guy and sensible woman morning show thing is done. Uncreative. BORING. The world has changed, and radio needs to catch up.
There’s no reason to come to the radio for music really, I can listen to what I want, when I want, and for free. I come to radio for personality, to laugh, to hear a different spin on the news. And unfortunately, I haven’t heard a single person on the air that has genuinely made me want to listen in years. There are podcasts that are over an hour long a day that I go out of my way to listen to just because they discuss current events in a way that entertains me. Not delivered in the stale “HollyWEIRD” report. When someone is allowed to be themselves, it’s amazing how much of a difference it makes.
Almost everyone I know in my age group feels the same way. Often when I tell people that I work in radio they say “Oh, how cool!” then follow it up with “I never listen to the radio, but I’ll try to listen to you sometime!”
It’s a sad sad world for an industry I love, but, I think if someone starts taking some real risks it can change. Perhaps you’ll be that risk taker, Fred.
the old adage “Give them something they can’t get anywhere else” applies here.
Radio Person, thanks for the comments as difficult as they were to read and consider. It’s sad that you’ve reached this point after a decade in the business because I would bet there was a time when you were proud to work in radio, and jazzed to come to work everyday. Radio has screwed a lot of things up to be sure, but some of the disruptive conditions you talk about were inevitable and unavoidable. I would also point out that public radio offers an entirely different experience, and one that resonates very deeply for millions of listeners. But I feel bad that you have to go to work everyday and feel this way about your station.
You didn’t ask for my advice but consultant that I am, I’ll give it to you anyway: You’re a smart, insightful person who should either have the guts to leave radio and do something you truly love, or grow some bigger stones and take some of those risks yourself. I seriously appreciate your POV on this and I hope you find your own answers.
As a long time Program Director on the Prairies of Saskatchewan Canada, and having two daughters in their 20’s in Saskatoon – one a teacher, and one a social worker – these gals are connected to social media, their Ipods and other music sources – BUT – they find their new music in Radio. I’ve often asked “where did you hear that song?” – they can’t recall – and respond “I think I heard it on the Radio!”. They ‘think’ they heard it on the Radio? They’re not sure. Whether terrestrial or STL my job is to somehow make sure they KNOW where they heard a song first. Thanks for the discussion.
Bill, thanks for chiming in with some “family research.” Amazing that no one at Beloit College ran into young people like the ones described by many of our commenters.
and “Thank You” for the blog Fred. Glad I found you on Twitter thru All Access.
There are young adults who grew up without wanting or needing radio as an entertainment choice. It’s a fact. Radio made a bad decision to exclude them in their programming for years. When radio programmers decided that the 25-54 was worth their time and money to pursue, they limited programming, outreach and real choice for younger audiences. CHR hasn’t seen real innovation in years. Playlist didn’t allow for diversity at these stations. For example, KIIS FM in Los Angeles plays their currents – literally – hourly. A lot other stations have just given up and turned LDR for service.
For Jacobs and others in our business to complain makes no sense. It was a decision that didn’t work. And no, I don’t believe the mystical 293 million that Arbitron – in contrary to facts – trots out year after year. It’s sampling that’s questionable.
Keith or K.D., always nice to hear from you. As I stated in the post and in a number of these comments, the radio industry has had its share of misfires and other challenges. But that doesn’t change the fact that the Beloit folks misstated the truth about radio and young people with their blanket statement – which they’ve now retracted. I believe their change of heart says it all. Thanks for taking the time.
Hey Fred,
The wording may have been flippant, but the sentiment was probably in the right ballpark.
It isn’t that an 18 year old has no use for radio at all. It likely just occupies the same rung on the mental ladder as broadcast television. When you consider that streaming services tend to position their products as “radio” products, the overall health of the “radio” brand isn’t dead. Just evolving. Broadcast radio needs to evolve as well. Part of why I check out your blog is because that is something you have always understood.
As much as I would like to believe in that Arbitron data, I think we all kind of intuitively understand that there is a “mindset” to research compliant people in Arbitron studies. Glad they care, don’t know if they reflect the general population any more than “most likely voters” reflect the general population in elections.
Glad to see you taking the Beloit folks to task on this.
Jacent, I appreciate the comments and providing some perspective. There are lots of “moving parts” to this debate, but I’m pleased the Beloit people rethought their list item and made the change. I wasn’t the only one who brought this to their attention. Their list is influential and much-quoted. Someone on their end needs to take more time to review its implications. Thanks again.
Fred,
I finally gave up on commercial radio the last time the Lakers won the NBA finals. During the run up to the championship I’d started to listen to KSPN for coverage. I was stuck on the 405 one afternoon and heard the station promoting a Rick Fox interview, I hung around because I used to live in the same building in Cambridge, Ma as Rick and had better than a nodding aquaintence with him. After rentlessly promoting the ex-Laker and Celtic player for a half hour Fox was finally introduced. Rick has a couple of championship rings, he is articulate and funny. Should be good radio. Mason and Ireland say hi and then proceed to talk about themselves, their opinions and views, they talk over Rick, answer their own questions, they pay no attention to a guy with championship experience with both teams. Rick was on with them from about twenty past the hour until the top of the hour and with updates, commercials (sets of 6) and the relentless, mindless chatter from Mason and Ireland, I’d estimate Rick was on the air for no longer than 5 minutes out of 40. If I’d been their manager or PD, I would have fired them both!
Robert, we all have those moments where radio let us down. (I have a “favorite” interview I heard on a client with Gregg Allman where the jock started the questions with, “Hey, Gregg, today is the anniversary of your brother’s death. How’re you feeling ’bout that?”). But somehow, the medium perseveres, through the heinous moments, consolidation, missed opportunities, and all the other snafus that critics mention. This isn’t a discussion about radio’s errors, but about Beloit College’s misuse of a perfectly fun pop culture device that is meant to amaze us, make us smile, and shake our heads. It may not be journalism (with a capital J), but they have an obligation to not jump to conclusions that simply aren’t true. Whether we love what we hear out of the speakers – or not- young people listen to the radio…still. And many enjoy it.
Thanks for chiming in to what is becoming an epic conversation. Do we have any incoming freshmen who would like a piece of this?
My experience with my grand kids mirrors the study. I have a grand daughter at NYU, she’s 20 and a Junior, has never turned on a radio in New York city. The other grand daughter is 19 and goes to UCLA,she has never listened to a LA station. My two grand sons, 9 and 11, don’t know what a radio is. It may have something to do with the navigation screen in the car. Scary for an old radio guy like me, glad I’m not in it anymore.
Someone’s prediction of the future is certainly opinion. They have the right to be wrong, right?
Beloit isn’t a prediction – it’s a statement about the mindset of the incoming freshmen. And yes, we ALL have the right to be wrong. Thanks, Joe.
Fred,
I appreciate you patiently engaging in this debate. I think the broadcasting industry also needs to be careful about relying on the “everybody uses radio” statistics. There is a big difference between “using” and “loving.” Even if radio usage remains high, passion for radio has declined. People just don’t idolize DJs or sit by the radio waiting for their favorite song the way they I’d a few decades ago. And that’s a problem, because this is an entertainment industry. Entertainment industries rely on passion. Without it, they are vulnerable.
Dead on the money, Seth. We all use appliances in our lives but we aren’t passionate about them. Radio cannot allow itself to fall into that appliance zone, and with young people, some would argue the war has been lost. I agree that the Arbitronics can be deceiving, depicting a more stable situation than is really true. Young people live in a world where “What’s new” is a mantra, and radio has is going to have to work harder to answer that bell. Thanks again for keeping the conversation going. It’s been a fun Monday here – during a supposedly slow vacation week.
Funny, I’m a big supporter of radio, and I’ve enjoyed reading all of these comments and the excellent replies while, um, listening to Spotify. Uh oh.
Thanks for the reality check, Richard. Now get back to work on this week’s “The Sands Report.”
I’m appalled by this entire episode. Not appalled by the state of relevance or non-relevance of radio – I’ve been in the business for over 40 years, and while we certainly have some challenges ahead, we have nothing in front of us as embarrassing as this should be for Beloit College.
Having run a research company some years ago, I am appalled that “academics,” under the umbrella of a recognized educational institution, can publish (and apparently benefit from in various venues) “findings” that, when challenged, can be re-stated in such a way so as to significantly change the original meaning.
How do they reconcile “…never listen to music on the radio…” with “While still fans of music on radio…??” Just bad wording of the “finding?” Or do they just make shit up?
Thanks for pushing back, Fred. Do you see any other findings you’d like them to completely change the meaning of? Just let them know.
Meanwhile, let’s all focus on what real problems we do have, and ignore charlatans such as these.
Jim Smith
Jim, my reaction exactly. You just can’t say whatever you want (unless you write political ads). This is a well-respected, much publicized list. They need to do better. Thanks for the kind words and an on-point comment.
Radio is a best, far less relevant to college freshman than it was…and that trend is escalating. It’s funny how Arbitron and other research cite radio as still having reasonably strong college age listenership and other research concludes that large sums of then use radio to find new music. Yet we all have anecdotal examples of real live college students whose only radio is the one in their car. I guess if you listen to radio once in awhile to find new music…or at all, then it counts as music discovery or cume.
But I’ll bet if someone had the guts to post trends of both of those numbers they would look really bad.
Now here are my anecdotes: 1) My son (who just started college) and I both enjoyed a pretty unique local station that played red dirt/Texas country when we dropped him off at college. Neither he or his roommate own a car or a radio. I told him about the station’s app (which offers streaming among other things) and his response was, “I can get the same thing from Pandora with no commercials”. 2) The students who run and staff my college radio station (one of the few commercial college stations out there) decided to stop programming to students, because, in their words “so few of them own radios”.
Beloit was wrong, to be sure…but someday soon they could well be right. That’s the real issue. As someone else noted, years ago, radio made the decision to abandon younger demos for the more sought after 25-54. Its reaping what it sowed.
Radio would be better off reversing bad decisions than defending them.
I think you make a good point. They were wrong to make the claim, but the trend line on young people is not looking encouraging. Maybe we take the Beloit College Mindset List’s mistkae and use it ass a sort of early warning system. Thanks for your contribution as always, Bob.