Innovativeness and broadcaster listenership: Evidence from the German radio industry

This paper investigates the relationship between innovative-ness and radio listening in the german radio industry. We consider “on-air” and “off-air” broadcaster innovativeness as well as new ways of delivering these components. Survey data and audience performance data on a sample of german radio firms were used for the purposes of this study. Empirical results suggest that programming diversity and a primarily focus on “on-air” components can directly improve broad-caster’s audience performance. The “off-air” components such as introduction of the digital frequency, and on-line presence are not found to contribute to a radio station’s success in terms of listenership in the short run. Furthermore, organizational innovation is found to have a weak positive association with the broadcaster’s audience size.