Friday, January 15, 2016

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.