As 2024 comes to an end, we’re looking back at the blog posts that resonated the most. Here are our top 5 most popular audio insights posts of the year in descending order:

5. Podcast Consumers Prefer Funny And Entertaining Ads But Mostly Hear Dry Feature/Benefit Ads: In January, we covered findings from Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights’ Podcast Download Fall 2023 Report with a focus on podcast ad creative. While podcast consumers prefer hearing ads with humor that entertained them, the study revealed they were mostly hearing ads with dry feature lists and benefits.

4. Marketers Vastly Understate The Sales Effect Of Creative And Significantly Overestimate The Impact Of Targeting: Our fourth most read blog of 2024 is an installment of our famous perception versus reality series. Advertiser Perceptions surveyed brands and agencies, asking about the sales contribution of five advertising effectiveness factors: brand, creative, reach, recency, and targeting. Via Nielsen, we then examined the actual magnitude of these five sales drivers. Perception and reality did not align. Marketers and media agencies massively understate the immense sales effect power of creative and overestimate the impact of targeting by 2X.

3. Nielsen: AM/FM Radio Expands Its Ratings Lead Over TV And Smashing AM/FM Radio’s Drive Time Myth: In March, the release of Nielsen’s Q3 2023 Comparable Metrics revealed AM/FM radio continued its reign as America’s number one mass reach media. Among persons 18-49, AM/FM radio pulled away from TV with a +121% average audience advantage. The piece also disproved a common misperception among advertisers and agencies about how much AM/FM radio listening occurs during “drive times.” In reality, middays are number one with 26% of total AM/FM radio time spent.

2. Head Snapper: Podcast 18-34 Reach Is Now Equal To TV, Female Podcast Habituation Hits An All-Time High, And The One Slide Every Marketer Needs To Have From Edison Research’s Infinite Dial 2024: The second most popular Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group® blog comes from Edison Research’s Infinite Dial, the long running study of consumer digital audio use. The 2024 release revealed that podcasts are no longer a niche platform lacking scale as 135 million Americans 12+ are now reached monthly. Podcast habituation also hit a high end of historical performance with 72% of the monthly podcast audience also listening in the past week.

And our most popular post…

1. YouTube’s Growth As A Podcast Power Player Revealed In Cumulus Media And Signal Hill Insights’ Podcast Download – Spring 2024 Report: In June we released Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights’ Podcast Download – Spring 2024 Report, the twelfth in the twice annual series of studies analyzing the media habits of weekly podcast consumers. Our most popular blog post highlighted the findings from the report on YouTube, revealing it to be the most utilized podcast listening platform in the U.S.

Pierre Bouvard is Chief Insights Officer of the Cumulus Media | Westwood One Audio Active Group^®.

Contact the Insights team at CorpMarketing@westwoodone.com.