It’s back.

Radio is back on the road.

In case you haven’t noticed this summer, a lot of us have been doing what we were discouraged from doing last summer.

Spring and Summer 2020 was the year of cancelled vacations, limited gatherings and working from home.

2021 has been much different.  Forbes magazine proclaimed:

As The Country Opens Up, Radio Listening Is Returning To Pre-Pandemic Levels

And it’s true. Here’s more:

The pandemic forced millions to stay-at-home as businesses were temporarily closed, curtailing commuting hours. As working-remotely became a way of life, some office workers moved away from central cities to sparsely populated outer suburbs and second homes. These workers relied on Zoom calls, emails, chat rooms with more “personal time” to consume media.

I decided to ask my team about the way they have been doing meetings now and 90% of the meetings that they would have done in person in 2019 they are doing in person in 2021.  What about the other 10%? Zoom meetings have created another option that they can used for meetings that is convenient in situations where time is a premium and distance would be challenging.

The Forbes article also addressed another issue that I’ve been hearing for years.

Even with the increase in web enhanced connected cars, the most popular source of audio infotainment in cars remains AM/FM radio. According to Edison Research in first quarter 2021, terrestrial radio accounted for 87% of all ad-supported in-car listening, followed by SiriusXM (6%), podcasts (5%), ad-supported Pandora (2%) and ad-supported Spotify (1%).

Our Federated Media radio stations, including mine, News/Talk WOWO have multiple methods for listeners to listen.  WOWO can be heard on 1190am in the Indiana, Ohio and Michigan Tri-state area and if you are local to Fort Wayne, Indiana, you can also listen to WOWO at 107.5fm.  Streaming online is another way WOWO listeners tune in, either on the WOWO App, or any of the other popular audio streaming apps, or by going to WOWO.com and click on the listen now button.  There’s even a WOWO Skill for Alexa and our other Federated Media stations.

Yes, I’ve wandered off the subject of radio is back on the road.  When you going wandering on the road this year, turn the radio on like nearly 90% of Americans are doing.  And if you run a business and want to explore how to get these commuters to drive to your place, contact me, Scott@WOWO.com