'Let's talk love ... but first,
a little Johnny Mercer.'

Male-oriented radio programming and formats with an upper-income-listener skew tend to be common denominators of the top 15 formats that attract radio website traffic, according to (pdf) a study of media websites released by The Media Audit, writes MarketingCharts.

The top 3 formats for radio website traffic are modern rock, adult alternative and sports, according a telephone study of 118,211 randomly selected adults in 88 markets conducted between January 2006 and April 2007.

"The perception is that younger people are so oriented to the internet that we expected to see younger oriented formats dominating the list of top radio website visitors. However, that isn't the case," said Bob Jordan, president of The Media Audit.

Four of the younger (18-34) formats (modern rock, rock, CHR and Dance CHR) were evenly spread across the top 15 formats for radio website visitors, and three older-skewing (55+) formats - Talk, News/Talk and Classical - were also spread across the top 15 formats.

"When you look at the internet penetration, it makes sense," said Jordan. "81 percent of 18-34s are online, and 80 percent of 35-54-year-olds are also online."

"An age demographic analysis shows that the internet is very much integrated into the lifestyle of the majority of the population," noted Jim Higginbotham, The Media Audit research chief. "It isn't until you get into the 65-74 and 75+ demographics that internet use tails off. Since most formats are targeted under 75, it makes sense that it would be a cross-section of formats that make the top 15 list for going to radio websites."

Ten of the top 15 most-listened to radio formats (noted in red in table below) make it into the top 15 format by proportion of listeners visiting radio websites. Country, the fourth most-popular format in the nation, was the largest format not to make it into the top 15 by proportion of web visitors.

Over 20 percent of Country listeners are blue-collar workers, which suggests that as a group they have somewhat less access to a computer compared with the general population, which in turn suggests that country listeners have fewer opportunities to go online to a radio station website, The Media Audit noted.