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Ethnic minorities: Britain’s vanguard online radio market

The summary of Ofcom’s new study on minorities and mobile gadgets reads as follows: “Ethnic minority groups are . . . more likely to have home broadband and a mobile phone, although they are less likely to watch TV and listen to the radio, compared to the British population as a whole.” But what the United Kingdom broadcast regulator report also shows is that these gadget loving consumers are more likely to listen to radio on the Internet than via AM/FM streams.

The survey looked at seven British Ethnic Minority Group (EMG) populations: Asian Pakistani, Indian, and Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean and African, “mixed” groups such as “Mixed – White and Black Caribbean,” and “Other White” (presumably non-United Kingdom origin White people). It found that sixteen percent of EMGs and 19% of the Other White group listen to radio on the internet, as opposed to 11% of all respondents to the study (defined as the “GB population”). Over one in five respondents from the “Black African Group” said they listen to internet radio.

Ofcom study: minorities and gadgets

Why? Probably because British minorities, with family and friends all over the world, are more connected to the ‘Net than the general populace. “Eighty-two per cent of the Asian: Indian group have a broadband connection compared to 71% in the GB population,” the report notes: “The Black Caribbean group is as likely as the GB population to have a broadband connection, while most other EMGs tend to be more likely to have a broadband connection.”

As for mobile wireless:

• One in five (20%) of the Asian: Bangladeshi group report having at least five phones in the household, compared to 5% among the GB population.

• In most EMGs there were higher proportions of 16-34s on pay-as-you-go contracts, compared to the GB average (43% vs. 38%).

• More than half of the Mixed ethnic (57%), Asian: Pakistani (58%), Asian: Bangladeshi (57%), Asian: Indian (54%) and Black African (56%) groups agree that they could not do without mobile technology, compared with 43% of the GB population.

• Up to one in five (18%) of ethnic minority groups have no fixed line in the household, compared to one in ten (12%) of the GB population.

• More than a third (36%) of the Other White group made international calls every month, compared to one in ten (13%) of the White British group. Two in five (40%) of the Asian: Indian group made international calls.

• Almost two in five in the Asian: Indian group used their phone line for business calls, compared to one in three in the GB population.

The unfolding Internet radio market: much more international and much more complex than conventional broadcast radio.

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