Today Nielsen held a series of client webinars to review key insights from a brand new study of consumer COVID-19 sentiment and spending intentions. They also reviewed just-released audience data from the 45 Portable People Meter markets. The PPM data covered the period of March 27, 2020 through May 6, 2020. Nielsen reported a significant resurgence of U.S. AM/FM radio listening.
AM/FM radio listening levels recover to 82% of pre-COVID-19 levels
Nielsen presented an analysis of unweighted quarter-hour listening from their PPM overnight audience service for AM/FM radio programmers. They benchmarked pre-COVID-19 listening from the second week of March (March 5 to 11, 2020) at a 100 index. In the back half of March, AM/FM radio listening dropped as America began sheltering at home.
