Shocker: Chinese-Speaking Asian Americans Prefer Chinese Language Radio

Arbitron has released the results of a Winter 2006 survey of radio listening by Chinese language consumers in the Los Angeles metropolitan radio market. The survey found that 56.7 percent of radio listening by Chinese-speaking Asian Americans in Los Angeles is to Chinese language radio. That number is up a bit from the Winter 2005 radio survey (which also looked at New York City) that found 56.2 percent of radio listening by Chinese-speaking Asian Americans is to Chinese language radio.

The leading English language formats for these listeners are adult contemporary (7.4 percent), pop contemporary hit radio (6.0 percent) and classical (5.1 percent).

The survey also found that, over the course of a week, 89.2 percent of Chinese-speaking Asian Americans in Los Angeles, age 12 and older, listen to the radio. This is up from 88.3 percent from Winter 2005. These 338,900 persons spend an average of 16:45 hours each week with the medium,

MultiCultural Radio Broadcasting stations reach, 62.6 percent of the Chinese-speaking Asian American audience who have attended some college and 53.7 percent of those who live in households with incomes greater than $75,000.

Based on the survey, Arbitron estimates that there are approximately 380,039 Chinese-speaking Asian Americans, age 12 and older living in the Los Angeles Metro Survey area, representing three and half percent of total persons 12+ population.

There are three full-time Chinese-language radio stations in the Los Angeles area.