“A New Benchmark for Mechanical Avoidance of Radio Advertising”, 2020-03-23 (; backlinks; similar):
Radio remains popular, delivering an audience reach of over 90%, but radio ratings may overestimate real advertising exposure. Little is known about audience and media factors affecting radio-advertising avoidance. Many advertisers have believed as much as 1⁄3rd of the audience switch stations during radio-advertising breaks.
In the current study, the authors combined Canadian portable people-meter data ratings to measure loss of audience during advertising. They discovered a new benchmark of 3% (across conditions) for mechanical (or actual physical) avoidance of radio advertising, such as switching stations or turning off the radio.
This rate is about one-tenth of current estimates, but was higher for music versus talk stations, out-of-home versus in-home listening, and early versus late dayparts.