WOULD YOU PAY $45 TO WATCH A PODCAST TAPING? • WELCOME TO RATINGS-PALOOZA

One of NPR’s most engaging productions, The NPR Politics Podcast, has found a way to raise cash for NPR and member stations. 

A special series, The Road To 2020, begins with a live taping March 8^th in Atlanta [link]. 

The network says similar events will be held in other cities prior to the election of 2020.

NPR tested the idea of inviting a studio audience to a podcast taping during the run-up to the 2018 midterm election. Events were held in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Charlotte, and Washington, DC.

The Atlanta taping is being held in the 1,800-seat Buckhead Theater. Tickets aren’t cheap. The best seats cost $45 per person – other seats cost $35 per person. According to press accounts, tickets are selling briskly.

The NPR Politics Podcast is working with WABE and Georgia Public Broadcasting to stage the event. On stage for the taping will be NPR’s Congressional Correspondent Scott Detrow, White House Correspondent Tamara Keith, Lead Political Editor Domenico Montanaro, and White House Reporter Ayesha Rascoe.

ARE YOU READY FOR SOME RATINGS?

Nielsen Audio, via RRC, has released the Fall 2018 numbers from all 50 or so PPM markets. Also, this week Nielsen/RRC will release the Fall 2018 ratings for Diary-methodology markets.

Spark News will be looking at the performance of noncom stations two years after Fall 2016 when many NPR News/Talk stations had record high listening numbers. During the coming days we will be looking the numbers to answer these four questions:

• How are NPR News/Talk stations doing in Fall 2018 compared to Fall 2016?

• Will AAA music stations remain the number three public radio format behind News/Talk and Classical music?

• Will Classical stations keep defying gravity by adding new listeners and maintaining current listening by folks in the older age demos?

• Will noncom stations follow the same declining weekly cume trends of commercial stations or buck the trend?

Our goal is to provide a snapshot of public radio station’s of all formats. We will also include the most-listened-to religious noncom stations. We start todays with the Top Four Nielsen Audio markets:

In New York, WNYC-FM is certainly doing better in Fall 2018 than they were during the election year. Not only has WNYC-FM increased its number of estimated weekly listeners, its average-quarter-hour (AQH) share has steadily increased in the past two years.

We have added something new to our charts. Note the “Cume Total” in the lower part of Weekly Listeners chart. 

We are adding the number of weekly listeners for stations that have data for the past three years. This will provide a rough estimate of the number of weekly listeners to subscribing stations in each market.

The “total market cume” is provided to see how much the number of weekly listeners changed between Fall 2018 a Fall 2016. This number is for comparative uses only because a person typically listeners to more than one station. In New York there were 3.8% more estimated weekly listeners for seven stations in Fall 2018 than two years prior.

Also in NYC, Classical WQXR added weekly listeners compared to Fall 2016. WQXR’s AQH share was also up.

WFUV had the biggest percentage jump in estimated weekly listeners. Jazz WBGO and News/Talk WNYC-AM had the biggest losses.

KPCC in LA is showing the same trend as WNYC-FM. Both AQH share and estimated weekly listeners were way up in Fall 2018 compared to Fall 2016.

Classical KUSC is showing the same trend as WQXR – up in both AQH share and weekly listeners. Jazz KKJZ is showing a similar upward trend.

The number of estimated weekly listeners to the five stations for which we have complete data was up 4% from Fall 2016.

In Chicago, the number of weekly listeners is 10% greater in Fall 2018 than it was in Fall 2016.

New estimated weekly listeners to WBEZ and Moody Bible’s WMBI-FM were responsible for the gain.

This is the first quarter when we can see the listening data for Vocalo. 

CPB has invested in the Urban Alternative format. 

As we reported in September [link], CPB is supporting a development project led by consultant Mike Henry of Paragon Research. Vocalo is one of three stations participating.

KQED is still the top radio station in the Bay Area even though its number of estimated weekly listeners is down 12% from Fall 2016.

Note how KQED’s AQH share has grown while the “cume” declines. This means that fewer people are listening to KQED in Fall 2018. But those who are listening to KQED are listening longer and on more occasions.

Classical KDFC is up in both metrics.

The overall number of weekly listeners to the four Nielsen rated stations fell by 3.9% in Fall 2018 compared with Fall 3016.