CLASSICAL MUSIC IS DOING VERY WELL ON RADIO & IN DIGITAL MEDIA

A friend of mine who programs a Classical music station told me that Classical is “the ultimate oldies format.” Rather than go back to the 1960s or 70s like a contemporary music station, Classical stations take you back to the 1660s and 1770s.

Then my friend quickly added “Much of the music is eternal but it is the performances, artists and recordings that are new.” Noncommercial Classical stations have been polishing and promoting the New Button very well in recent years. The most recent Nielsen Audio June PPM data compared to a year ago is proof of the resilience of Classical music on the radio.

This week we are looking at Nielsen Audio’s estimated weekly cumulative listeners for noncommercial radio stations in PPM markets.  We are comparing the just-released data for June 2016 with June 2015 and one-year trends. Today we are looking at Classical music stations.

COMING FRIDAY: SUMMARIES, TRENDS & RATINGS FOR “SMALLER” NONCOM FORMATS NEXT WEEK: SPRING 2016 DIARY MARKETS

Ratings for Classical music stations have been compiled into four charts: the top ten stations, stations 11 – 15, dual format stations and commercial Classical stations operated by nonprofit organizations. Please scroll down to see all of the charts. Also, scroll down to see a news item about a wonderful “value added” digital feature being offered by KING-FM, Seattle.

According to Nielsen Audio’s estimated weekly cumulative listeners in June 2016 compared to June 2015, 63% of fulltime Classical music stations in PPM markets gained weekly listeners.

Seven of out of the ten Classical stations with the most weekly listeners had increases. WQXR has a lot of listeners on Long Island. 

KBAQ is the star performer in the top ten adding 24% more weekly listeners between 2015 and 2016.  KDFC, San Francisco and KQAC, Portland added 17% more weekly listeners.

WCPE, Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill is the star performer in the 11 – 25 group with 19% more weekly listeners in 2016. WDAV, Davidson/Charlotte was up 18%.

CHECK OUT KING-FM’s FANTASY CONCERTS

KING is offering a series of Fantasy Concerts [link] for Smartphone listeners via their KING-FM App available at no charge from the App Store. The concerts are on-demand compilations of live music from top local performances by local artists in the Puget Sound area. 

Each podcast begins with “Welcome. This is the classical KING-FM fantasy concert, a concert that never happened, but we wish it did, so we made it so.” The Fantasy Concerts can also be downloaded from the KING-FM website.

As I write this post I am listening to Fantasy Concert #3 titled “Be very, very quiet. Chamber music to read by…” Pieces included are:

• Couperin: Keyboard Pieces, Book II, Suite No.6: The Mysterious Barricades

Ben Verdrey, guitar

• Beethoven: Violin Sonata No.7 in C minor, Op.30/2: II. Adagio cantabile

Maria Larionoff, violin; Robin McCabe, piano

• Marini: Passacaglia Byron Schenkman and Friends

• Gaubert: Romance Leone Buyse, flute; Lisa Bergman, piano

• Rachmaninoff: Vespers, Op.37: Ave Maria Choral Arts; Robert Bode, director

This concert not only is nice while reading, it is wonderful while writing!

Thanks for the story tip from Matthew Lasar at Radio Survivor [link].