“CLASSICAL MUSIC RISING” FOCUSES ON MAJOR DONORS • MIXED RESULTS FOR FULL-TIME CLASSICAL STATIONS IN OCTOBER PPM RATINGS

Folks at Classical Music stations sometimes wonder why donors give $10,000 to the local symphony but only $65 a year to your station? Classical Music Rising (CMR) wants you to know the answer and what your station can do about it.

CMR [link], an initiative sponsored by the Station Resource Group (SRG), has hired long-time development specialist Deborah Lein to find the answers. 

Lein, former COO of Greater Public and Development Specialist at Public Radio International (PRI) is a highly respected researcher with numerous ties to the Classical Music radio industry.

Source: Culture Track Study on Consumer Behavior

Lein is currently conducting an analysis of fourteen arts organizations, ranging from the Metropolitan Opera to the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. She is also studying patterns in funding for the arts, education and community engagement.

According to a post on the CMR Newsletter, Lein will provide practical and strategic resources to help philanthropic fundraising locally and collectively plus listener engagement suggestions and other best practices. Information from Lein’s study may lead to a multi-station project in the near future.

If you are interest in Classical Music radio, we urge you to subscribe to the CMR Newsletter. For more information, contact Wende Persons at wende@classicalmusicrising.org

68% OF FULL-TIME CLASSICAL MUSIC STATIONS IN PPM MARKETS HAD FEWER WEEKLY LISTENERS IN OCTOBER 2017 COMPARED TO OCTOBER 2016

According to Nielsen Audio, more than two-thirds of the full-time Classical Music stations in PPM markets had fewer estimated weekly listeners in October 2017 than they had in October 2016.

We are now tracking 28 full-time Classical stations in these markets. We have complete information for 25 of the stations. Eight stations (32%) were up compared to October 2016 and 17 stations (68%) were down.

The chart on the left shows the Top Ten Classical Music stations ranked by the number of weekly listeners. We had enough information to compare nine of the ten stations. The estimated number of weekly listeners was up at three stations and down at six.

Technically, WQXR is number one if you add listeners in two adjacent PPM markets, Long Island (59,3000 and Northern New Jersey (40,700). Including data for these two markets, WQXR had 675,200 estimated weekly listeners. Both WQXR and KUSC have considerable listening in adjacent Diary markets which is not included in the October numbers. (Scroll down to see results for stations #11 - #28.)