32 Million people tune into Public Radio Weekly (Nielsen)

A Nifty Report on Public Radio Listening     

Boomers still spend the most time with Public Radio. Gen X and Millennials are in the mix, but spend about half as much time with Public Radio as Boomers.

Boomers still spend the most time at home listening. Millennials spend the most time listening away from home...about 65%.

Washington, DC is the top market when measured as a percent of total radio listening. Vermont is second. Connecticut is in the top 10.

Nielsen calls the audience diverse with about 8% of the audience Hispanic and 10% African American.

The Platform Matters

I recently sent out a post about WOSU's decision to sell its AM signal. WOSU had recently transitioned its news audience to 89.7FM. The change was made possible after the station had purchased another FM signal and moved classical programming to that signal.

The transition to FM for the news programming was, unfortunately, 25 years late. The radio platform preferred by the Boomers (NPR's prime market segment) is FM radio.

I'm spending some time helping with the production of the Real Life Survival Guide. One of the goals of the program is to continue the conversation on-line. We were frustrated by the scant participation through the program's website. (Of course, there's that scary moment when we thought nobody cared.) Through the help of our web guy, Gary Choronzy, "the new RLSG / Facebook comment integration is now live. what this does is synchronize site comments with FB conversation threads. to see it in action, see Bruce's latest post:"  http://reallifesurvivalguide.com/2011/12/09/whats-the-best-way-to-get-started-on-an-exercise-routine/

We're trying to increase awareness of the program and increase participation by utilizing Facebook...the platform used by most of our listeners.