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.
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.
