Air America Ratings
FUTILITY
After Two Years, Few Bright Spots For Air America
On the heels of last week's devastating New
York City ratings release, which saw Air America Radio sink like a rock from already-low audience levels, subsequent news from elsewhere hasn't looked better. And in some cases, the results are even worse.
With data for two full years of programming now available, future liberal talk radio growth seems less likely than ever. Looking at markets across the country, only two cities continue to appear promising: Portland, Oregon and increasingly, Seattle.
To survive, Air America needs dozens of Portland and Seattle clones. After all this time, where are they? Stuck in line at Starbucks?
A round-up:
Despite the launch of a new live-and-local morning show featuring former mayor Willie Brown, San Francisco's KQKE-AM held steady at just a 1.2 listener share in the nation's fourth-biggest radio metro area. Over the past four ratings periods, KQKE has shown no overall audience growth.
In Washington, DC, the eighth-largest radio market, Air America affiliate WWRC-AM failed to generate any measurable audience figures.
Tenth-ranked Atlanta saw its AAR station, WWAA-AM, take second-to-last place, for a 0.5 overall audience share. The station is soon expected to drop its liberal format.
In Boston, now 11th-biggest, AAR's two combined AM stations also took a 0.5, to tie for second-to-last among all listeners 12 and older.
In Seattle (#14), KPTK-AM continued to grow, rising to a 2.8 share from a 1.4 in last year's spring book. Some have speculated that KPTK's gains have come at the expense of KIRO-AM, which features a mixed lineup with some liberal shows.
KXXT-AM/ Phoenix's (#15) last book before converting to religious programming saw Air America's programming fall from 1.2, to a 0.7 overall figure.
KTNF-AM/ Minneapolis (#16) continues to struggle, now down to a 1.0 share for listeners 12 and older. Only four stations in the market were ranked lower.
In San Diego (#17), ratings for AAR station KLSD-AM collapsed, from a healthy 3.1 in the Fall 2005 Arbitron Ratings Survey to a 1.6 now. KLSD's previously strong numbers now appear to have been a one-time fluke.
KKZN/ Denver (#22), despite featuring a live and local morning show, continued its long slide. Over the past four quarterly periods, KKZN has dropped from a 2.0 to a 1.4.
Portland's KPOJ-AM continues as AAR's strongest performer, in sixth place with a stable 4.1 overall share of the audience in the country's 24th-largest market.
Other than as a vehicle for political campaigning in this year's elections, why should Air America continue to function? If it can't make money and isn't seeing audience growth, what's the point?
What's quite obvious: admitting defeat now means damage to the "cause", meaning this sick puppy must continue to suffer. With this kind of weak performance, other radio format experiments would have shut down at least six months, if not a year, earlier.
And yet, even now, a few diehards continue to spin the network's results.
Your Amazon orders that begin with clicks here, regardless of what you ultimately purchase, help to support this site's efforts. Thanks again!
Unwanted, Desperately images: David A Lunde for the Radio Equalizer
After Two Years, Few Bright Spots For Air America
On the heels of last week's devastating New
York City ratings release, which saw Air America Radio sink like a rock from already-low audience levels, subsequent news from elsewhere hasn't looked better. And in some cases, the results are even worse.With data for two full years of programming now available, future liberal talk radio growth seems less likely than ever. Looking at markets across the country, only two cities continue to appear promising: Portland, Oregon and increasingly, Seattle.
To survive, Air America needs dozens of Portland and Seattle clones. After all this time, where are they? Stuck in line at Starbucks?
A round-up:
Despite the launch of a new live-and-local morning show featuring former mayor Willie Brown, San Francisco's KQKE-AM held steady at just a 1.2 listener share in the nation's fourth-biggest radio metro area. Over the past four ratings periods, KQKE has shown no overall audience growth.In Washington, DC, the eighth-largest radio market, Air America affiliate WWRC-AM failed to generate any measurable audience figures.Tenth-ranked Atlanta saw its AAR station, WWAA-AM, take second-to-last place, for a 0.5 overall audience share. The station is soon expected to drop its liberal format.In Boston, now 11th-biggest, AAR's two combined AM stations also took a 0.5, to tie for second-to-last among all listeners 12 and older.In Seattle (#14), KPTK-AM continued to grow, rising to a 2.8 share from a 1.4 in last year's spring book. Some have speculated that KPTK's gains have come at the expense of KIRO-AM, which features a mixed lineup with some liberal shows.KXXT-AM/ Phoenix's (#15) last book before converting to religious programming saw Air America's programming fall from 1.2, to a 0.7 overall figure.KTNF-AM/ Minneapolis (#16) continues to struggle, now down to a 1.0 share for listeners 12 and older. Only four stations in the market were ranked lower.In San Diego (#17), ratings for AAR station KLSD-AM collapsed, from a healthy 3.1 in the Fall 2005 Arbitron Ratings Survey to a 1.6 now. KLSD's previously strong numbers now appear to have been a one-time fluke.KKZN/ Denver (#22), despite featuring a live and local morning show, continued its long slide. Over the past four quarterly periods, KKZN has dropped from a 2.0 to a 1.4.Portland's KPOJ-AM continues as AAR's strongest performer, in sixth place with a stable 4.1 overall share of the audience in the country's 24th-largest market.
Other than as a vehicle for political campaigning in this year's elections, why should Air America continue to function? If it can't make money and isn't seeing audience growth, what's the point?What's quite obvious: admitting defeat now means damage to the "cause", meaning this sick puppy must continue to suffer. With this kind of weak performance, other radio format experiments would have shut down at least six months, if not a year, earlier.
And yet, even now, a few diehards continue to spin the network's results.
Your Amazon orders that begin with clicks here, regardless of what you ultimately purchase, help to support this site's efforts. Thanks again!
Unwanted, Desperately images: David A Lunde for the Radio Equalizer
published by Brian Maloney at
05:00
11 Comments:
SPIN????
Would you care to explain how
"KPTK Seattle up 22% since fall book, and up 86% since last winter's book. Other talk stations above them in the ratings were flat on a year over year basis."
is less of a factual analysis of the data than
"KPTK-AM continued to grow, rising to a 2.8 share from a 1.4 in last year's spring book. Some have speculated that KPTK's gains have come at the expense of KIRO-AM, which features a mixed lineup with some liberal shows.
By
Ezsuds, at 04 May, 2006 07:33
I anxiously await the NYT stories promoting this pathetic enterprise as "the answer to Rush" again...
Yup. Those newsies get it right every tiime. They're especially good at predicting the future. Remember when Bode Miller was poised to take the world by storm, according to Time magazine? How about when tens of thousands of our troops were going to die upon invading Iraq? How about the 2004 election (which we were told would be an unquestionable Bush defeat), in which (after "truth to power" was spoken) we learned that exit polls suddenly became more important indicators of public will than electoral votes?
And what about the Gloria Wise Boys and Girls club? What do they think of AA's meteoric rise (hype) and collapse (reality)?
Oh yeah, but AA and their friends in the newspapers know their stuff, alright.
By
Good Lieutenant, at 04 May, 2006 07:42
As I've mentioned before. The signal in DC is attrocious. They have a big potential market in Northern Virginia (they keep returning Jim Moran to Congress) but you can't hear it across the Potomac.
By
eLarson, at 04 May, 2006 07:56
Looking at year-over-year ratings differences isn't necessarily the best way to evaluate the performance of a politically-oriented talk radio station. Consider that the Winter 2005 ratings period came just after the national elections in 2004. Most talk radio programming enjoyed good ratings in this period (something of a "holdover" effect), which makes the Winter 2006 ratings look much worse by comparison as there weren't any national elections to draw additional listener interest.
That's why I think it's better to average station ratings over rolling four-quarter periods for stations featuring talk radio programming. It's easier to pick up actual trends in the ratings while avoiding political event-related "seasonality".
That said, AAR's ratings simply aren't improving and do show signs of erosion in larger markets, most notably New York City. Considering that roughly half of the network's audience may be found in just five cities, that's not a positive business situation.
By
Ironman, at 04 May, 2006 09:37
I am still waiting to find out when they are going to jail or returning the tax-payers money to NYC for shutting down that place...
Nice work you're doing. Keep it up. Hey, I don't really care if they did well. I just hate thieves.
By
Rosemary Welch, at 04 May, 2006 13:57
whiner, if you're really in NYC, explain this to me: in January, when Stern left K-Rock for satellite, roughly 600K listeners hit the morning terrestrial radio market--a huge chunk of them part of the lusted after 25-54 demographic--and AAR's overall share in the same demo dropped like a stone, from 1.5 to 0.7.
That you know far more people that listen to AAR than Salem or WABC is like that Kael chick from the NY Times being shocked when Nixon stomped McGovern in 1972, unable to understand it because "no one I know voted for him."
You're living in a bubble; the Arbitron numbers reflect what's going on outside.
By
Unknown, at 04 May, 2006 14:32
rightwingwhiner: "I know far more people who listen to Air America than the Salem network, or Limbaugh and Hannity for that matter."
I'm reminded of the apocryphal Pauline Kael line, "Nobody I know voted for Nixon."
By
James Jones, at 04 May, 2006 16:18
Should liberal outlaw be renamed rightwingwhinerkoshi?
It is instructive that RWW will take any tack to avoid talking about the points of Brian's analysis on AirAmerica's ratings slide.
And as to whether AA bills its time by 12+ listenership, time spent listening, people streaming, phase of the moon, or number of wingwhangs seen at the last Barney Frank Annual Streaker's Convention, companies looking to advertise generally look at the Arbitron books - something they can look at and touch and feel themselves rather than being told by a sales rep - as an objective standard of a station's reach to potential consumers.
And quite simply, the Arbitron books for AirAmerica range somewhere between stagnant and suck, outside of KPOJ/Portland and KPTK/Seattle.
Brian's hypothesis about KPTK's audience improvement secondary to problems at KIRO may be a bit of a stretch, IMHO. However, TCLynch was spot on when he linked Howard Stern going off-air at K-Rock, with WLIB seemingly unable to pick up ANY of that terrestrial listenership, even though that might be a fertile ground from which AirAmerica could harvest.
Facts are difficult things, and RWW seems to have a difficult time acknowledging them. Perhaps if he were to release the 'caps lock' function from time to time it would help his reasoning abilities. Shouting bullcrap only means you are putting out bullcrap at a higher volume, not changing the bullcrap into reason or fact.
By
SierraSpartan, at 04 May, 2006 23:21
Mr. Tuck said -
"KXXT-AM/ Phoenix's (#15) last book before converting to religious programming saw Air America's programming fall from 1.2, to a 0.7 overall figure."
Duh, the station was off the air March 1."
You're absolutely right, Mr. Tuck, that sure was a "Duh" on Brian's part. He should have, obviously, said that the programming share for KXXT-AM fell to zero......
By
Lokki, at 05 May, 2006 12:44
To All,
I have been keeping a spreadsheet on the RadioAndRecords stats for “Err America’s” ratings since Fall 2004. Here is a summary of that review:
From Fall 2004 – Election time frame:
Overall Top 50 market share shrunk from 1.3 to 1.1
Red State (Republican) saw shrinkage from 1.2 to 0.8
Blue State (Democrat) saw growth from 1.2 to 1.3
The overall rank in those markets averages 24.6
Red State average market rank is 24.7
Blue State average market rank is 24.5
From Winter 2005 :
Overall Top 50 market share shrunk from 1.2 to 1.1
Red State (Republican) saw shrinkage from 1.0 to 0.8
Blue State (Democrat) holds steady at 1.3
These stats include the higher rating for KXXT in Phoenix rather than KPHX which was unrated. They do not include Cleveland’s WTAM because it is a sports talk station with Jerry Springer thown in – and he was subsequently thrown out. Awaiting a potential boost from West Palm Beach and a marginal rating from Austin.
These stats seem to imply a stability in Democratic States with a market rank of 24th and a market share of 1.3.
However, if the intent of Err America is to convert the great unwashed than they are losing ground rather rapidly. How can the aggressive Liberal agenda (as pressed by Err America) attain electorial victories when their message is losing importance in the Red States? How long will George Soros and the chap from RealPlayer fund something that is not converting souls to the religion of militant Liberalism?
By
Boghie, at 06 May, 2006 14:01
Whatever the ratings, I enjoy listening to Air America. I listen every day. It's such a nice change from the right-wing hate on the other talk stations.
By
Haik Bedrosian, at 12 May, 2006 09:49
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