JAZZ & TRIPLE A STATIONS SHOW BIGGEST GAINS IN ONE-YEAR WEEKLY LISTENER TRENDS

Noncommercial Jazz and Triple A formatted stations had the largest percentage gains in weekly cumulative listeners according to Nielsen Audio PPM estimates for Fall 2015 compared with Fall 2014. Noncom Classical formatted stations had the largest weekly listener declines during the same period. NPR News formatted stations were split between stations that gained and stations that declined.

Thank you to the Radio Research Consortium, our source for Nielsen Audio data.

 In the analysis, we included only stations that are fulltime in each format to provide an apples-to-apples comparison.  Dual formatted stations were not included because without seeing hour-by-hour data the impact of one format versus another to difficult to determine.  To my knowledge, all of the stations carrying NPR News in Nielsen Audio PPM markets are published. However there are Classical, Triple A and Jazz stations that do not purchase Nielsen Audio data, so their listening is not included.

There are four “secular” noncommercial formats with significant listening. (A fifth noncom format, Contemporary Christian Music – CCM – also attracts significant listening.) Here are the summaries for the four secular formats:

	NPR NEWS	CLASSICAL	TRIPLE A	JAZZ
Fulltime Stations in Format	45	25	20	13
Gained in Weekly Listeners	20 (44%)	7 (28%)	11 (55%)	9 (69%)
Declined in Weekly Listeners	25 (56%)	21 (72%)	9 (45%)	4 (31%)

TRENDS OBSERVED

1. Lots of people currently listen to noncommercial radio. The sky has not fallen, yet.

2. The stations/formats that are drawing the most new listeners are highly focused on their local core listeners.  This is the key to success in noncom radio, to create programming valuable enough to be worth supporting.

3. Just my opinion, stations on the west coast seem to be out-performing stations in other regions.  For example, compare New York and LA.  In NYC four of the five measured stations lost weekly listeners in the one-year trends. In LA three of the four measured stations gained weekly listeners.  Noncoms in San Diego and Seattle also added many new weekly listeners.

NONCOMMERCIAL STATIONS:

TEN BIGGEST PERCENTAGE GAINS OF WEEKLY LISTENERS

NIELSEN AUDIO PPM MARKETS • COMPARING FALL 2015 & FALL 2014

RK	STATION	NIELSEN AUDIO MARKET	FORMAT	FALL 2014 WEEKLY LISTENERS	FALL 2015 WEEKLY LISTENERS	ONE YEAR TREND
1	WRAS	Atlanta	NPR News	61,200	102,000	+ 40%
2	KNPR	Las Vegas	NPR News	65,800	101,300	+ 35%
3	KSDS	San Diego	Jazz	48,300	73,200	+ 33%
4	KCRW	Los Angeles	NPR News & Triple A	448,200	661,800	+ 32%
5	KVCR	Riverside/San Bernardino	NPR News	36,000	52,600	+ 31%
6	KTBG	Kansas City	Triple A	35,600	50,400	+ 29%
7	WICR	Indianapolis	Classical & Jazz	42,100	68,300	+ 28%
8	KKJZ	Los Angeles	Jazz	380,000	518,300	+ 26%
9	WJCT	Jacksonville	NPR News	94,800	123,000	+ 22%
10	KNAI	Phoenix	Regional Mexican	280,100	349,300	+ 19%

NONCOMMERCIAL STATIONS:

TEN BIGGEST PERCENTAGE LOSSES OF WEEKLY LISTENERS

NIELSEN AUDIO PPM MARKETS • COMPARING FALL 2015 & FALL 2014

RK	STATION	NIELSEN AUDIO MARKET	FORMAT	FALL 2014 WEEKLY LISTENERS	FALL 2015 WEEKLY LISTENERS	ONE YEAR TREND
1	KCNV	Las Vegas	Classical	75,900	49,700	- 34%
2	WDCB	Chicago	Jazz	174,300	115,300	- 33%
3	WPLN	Nashville	NPR News	156,200	113,700	- 27%
4	WRCJ	Detroit	Classical & Jazz	159,900	121,300	- 24%
5t	WGUC	Cincinnati	Classical	124,100	96,100	- 22%
5t	WFUV	New York	Triple A	416,800	321,400	- 22%
7	WNYC-FM	New York	NPR News	830,700	656,200	- 21%
8t	WUOM	Detroit	NPR News	181,100	144,200	- 20%
8t	WYPR	Baltimore	NPR News	162,900	130,200	- 20%
8t	WERS	Boston	Triple A	210,300	167,500	- 20%

DATA © NIELSON AUDIO

Provided by RRC, Inc. for use by subscribers only

© Radio Research Consortium, Inc. // www.RRConline.org // RRC@RRConline.org

Format designations are the sole responsibility of Ken Mills Agency, LLC. Contact us publicradio@hotmail.com.

Definition of “Weekly Cume Persons” – “Cume” means cumulative listening – a measure of the total number of different persons in the designated metro area exposed to an encoded station for at least five minutes in a quarter-hour during an average week in a survey period.