Fred Paul Jacobs has a revealing post about how important public radio's audience is today. Arbitron will be including it in the ratings books in the coming "people meter" markets (perhaps in the diary markets also?), and it's been publishing some useful reports [PDF] on public radio listening. Jacobs writes:
Like a lot of commercial radio broadcasters, he never saw it coming. Public Radio has become a major listening force. Now a new Ipsos study ranks Public Radio an impressive fourth in weekly audience, ahead of some format stalwarts:
[snip]
How is Public Radio pulling this off - without marketing, without Harley giveaways, and without two guys in the morning talking about Mel Gibson? They're about quality programming and a value system that comes through loud and clear day in and day out. NPR programming, in particular, has become the paragon of credibility in a media world that is filled with hype or "traffic and weather on the 8's." ...
Link: JacoBlog. I have a methodological problem with calling "NPR" a format (e.g., aren't some NPR stations really news-talk stations?), but its use here is interesting nevertheless. Thanks to Rob Paterson, who provided this link as a reinforcing article to the post of his to which I linked immediately below this one. And he got it from Mike at Current, who beat both of us to Paul's Fred's blog, which, like Rob's and Mike's, is on my blogroll. And to think some people call the blogosphere an echo chamber. I call it multicasting. ;-) --Dennis (who adds an apology to the brothers Jacobs for the mix-up in names).
Then it's probably my fault you called him "Paul" and not "Fred," which I did as well (I've since corrected my error). I mixed them up. It doesn't help that Fred's name is nowhere on the blog! :)
Posted by: Mike Janssen | Tuesday, 29 August 2006 at 10:29