PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - AARON MICHELON AU - STEVEN BELLMAN AU - MARGARET FAULKNER AU - JUSTIN COHEN AU - JOHAN BRUWER TI - A New Benchmark for Mechanical Avoidance of Radio Advertising AID - 10.2501/JAR-2020-007 DP - 2020 Dec 01 TA - Journal of Advertising Research PG - 407--416 VI - 60 IP - 4 4099 - http://www.journalofadvertisingresearch.com/content/60/4/407.short 4100 - http://www.journalofadvertisingresearch.com/content/60/4/407.full SO - J Advert Res2020 Dec 01; 60 AB - Radio remains popular, delivering an audience reach of over 90 percent, 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 one-third 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 percent (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.