Latin American Radio Listening

In the Los Medios y Mercados de Latinoamérica 1995 study, we found that persons 12-64 in Latin America spend an average of 3.9 hours per day listening to radio. Another way of looking at this is that 16.3% of persons 12-64 in Latin Amreica are listening to radio. Of course, radio listening may be higher or lower by the time of day. The following table shows the percent of persons 12-64 listening to radio by various dayparts.

  Monday-Friday Saturday Sunday
6am-10am 23.6 19.8 16.2
10am-3pm 20.7 19.8 14.9
3pm-7pm 18.2 16.3 11.9
7pm-12m 9.4 7.3 5.6
12m-6am 2.6 1.9 1.4

(Source: Los Medios y Mercados de Latinoamérica 1995)

These daypart patterns of radio listening are very similar to elsewhere in the world. On weekday mornings, people are waking up, eating breakfast, dressing and going to work. Under these circumstances, radio listening is a good secondary activity, which may also provide useful information such as news, traffic and weather reports. That is why radio listening is heaviest during weekday mornings.

In the evening, people are at home and have the choice of doing other things such as watching television. That is why radio listening is lighter in the evening and on weekends.

In Latin America, radio can be heard in many outdoor and public settings. In fact, many people listen to ten or twelve hours of radio per day while they work. The most colorful examples are the buses of salsa, which are brightly painted buses equipped with loud stereo systems.

Further reference: International Comparisons of Radio Usage, which is based upon the TGI Latina study conducted in 2001-2002.


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