I Thought This Was Interesting

Between laptops, smart phones, etc. electronics tops the list of college spending (aside from tuition) by 18+ students and their parents. Check it out.

US Consumer Spending on Back-to-College Products, by Category, 2008 (billions)

• Electronics.....................................$11.05
• Clothing.........................................$7.01
• Dorm/apartment furnishings.................$4.74
• School supplies.................................$3.57
• Shoes.............................................$3.05
• Collegiate gear..................................$1.84

Note: ages 18+; includes spending by parents of college students and college students themselves

Source: BIGresearch for National Retail Federation (NRF), “2008 Back to School Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey,” July 22, 2008

Coincidence?

eMarketer published a poll conducted by Harris Interactive chronicling the daily online activities of US college students which they defined as 18-30 years old. Keep in mind this survey does not include cell phones, pda's etc., so no text messaging. Quite honestly no real surprises here. So the reason I'm posting the results? The percentage of students that download music. 25%.

If you happened to watch my multimedia podcast not long ago you would have seen this graph:
It's the nationwide 10 year AQH Rating trend of 18-24 year olds from Arbitron. The shockingly steep decline was just shy of 25%. Hmmm.

• Daily music downloads 25%/Rating point decline 25%

For a significant portion of listeners of all ages, in the past, music discovery was an important part of the radio experience. These data suggest, at least in the abstract, that the music discovery component of radio may also be in significant decline. I have to admit I am guessing here, since it would be impossible to correlate that information from the available data. But, I think it's a good guess.

I can't say it enough, these 18-24's will be graduating into the 25-54 demo before we can blink and based on the declining numbers, unless some dramatic change happens, we won't be welcoming many of them into the P1 radio club.