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Random commentary and senseless acts of blogging.
The first Republican president once said, "While the people retain their virtue and their vigilance, no administration by any extreme of wickedness or folly can seriously injure the government in the short space of four years." If Mr. Lincoln could see what's happened in these last three-and-a-half years, he might hedge a little on that statement. Blog critics Gryffindor House Slytherin House Ravenclaw House House Elves Beth Jacob Prisoners of Azkaban Muggles
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Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Summer radio ratings are now coming out city by city and show generally strong results for Air America. The most impressive result has been in San Diego, where Air America affiliate KLSD jumped up from dramatically. What makes that extraordinary is that AAR started in San Diego around September 1, meaning that only 1/3 of the period shown is AAR. Assuming that the old format continued to draw its old rating, that would extrapolate to about 4.6 for AAR in its very first month, a number that would mean it hit the ground as already a market leader - only one FM station in San Diego drew better ratings than 4.6 in the summer book. That's comparable to the fast start AAR had in Portland, but more impressive since San Diego is a conservative area that consistently votes Republican. Randi Rhodes is already saying she has the #1 rated show in the 25 - 54 demographic for San Diego. Flagship station WLIB in NYC had a slight increase in total ratings, up 0.1. But an article in the right wing NY Post shows that its 25 - 54 numbers are stronger. WLIB also showed improvements in suburban markets around New York, rising from 0.6 to 1.1 in Nassau-Suffolk, 1.5 to 1.9 in Westchester, and 0.0 to 0.4 in Northeast NJ (Middlesex-Somorset-Union). No summer ratings are out yet for Portland, but a Clear Channel executive who spoke before Al Franken's recent show in San Francisco said that the trends (preliminary ratings data released only to industry insiders) showed that the summer numbers for KPOJ were likely to improve on the blockbuster spring ratings. WHAT in Philadelphia carries less AAR programming on a weak signal, and also had no AAR for most of the summer. It still doubled the low ratings number from the spring. The only exception was Albaquerque where WABQ showed no ratings change at all. I have no information on whether the key demographic numbers have improved. It should be noted that the ratings listed here are 12+, i.e. all listeners 12 or older. These ratings are available for free on the internet because they don't really matter. What advertisers look for is specific age groups, especially the 25 - 54 grouping. Arbitron publishes these numbers for paid subscribers only, but they aren't on the net and are difficult to find out; Arbitron doesn't like having them publicized. It is known that, generally speaking, Air America has so far done much better in the 25 - 54 demo than in the published 12+. Conservative talk radio has a large 55+ audience so does better in 12+ than in 25 - 54. So if you see an article that cites the published 12+ numbers to prove AAR is failing, know you are being spun. |
