Not everything is about Seattle-Tacoma.
I was speaking about GOP percentages on a national average. If you compare the percentage of 30% of AM listeners in the markets listed, they seem to align with that percentage.
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AM Listening by Market: A ranker
- Thread starter davideduardo
- Start date
I was speaking about GOP percentages on a national average. If you compare the percentage of 30% of AM listeners in the markets listed, they seem to align with that percentage.
It's simple. Seattle has two strong AMs---one Sports (KIRO-AM), one News (KNWN), neither one particularly political and neither one simulcast on FM.
Yep. Chicago is similar. All-Sports WMVP and WSCR, all-news WBBM, and local talk WGN are by far the largest AM stations. Several poltical talk stations (WLS, WVON) and religious stations also exist in the market, but their audience is relatively small.
I'm surprised it's not Grand Island and central NE, small Kansas markets, small Minnesota markets, etc., where farmers would likely be listening to farm reports and classic country. I'm sure KRVN and KFRM STILL get a decent AM audience.
Seattle's on there because KIRO has the Mariners, and last year they had a huge jump when the Mariners made the playoffs. KNWN also gets a share of listeners, and the small conservative population (mostly Pierce county) mixes between KTTH and KVI. During the midterm election, KTTH was beating some commercial FMs.
Seattle's on there because KIRO has the Mariners, and last year they had a huge jump when the Mariners made the playoffs. KNWN also gets a share of listeners, and the small conservative population (mostly Pierce county) mixes between KTTH and KVI. During the midterm election, KTTH was beating some commercial FMs.
The data comes from the Nielsen ratings, and the areas you mention are not part of Metro Survey Areas.
And farmers today get most of their data off of Internet services, with AM radio becoming rather secondary.
Remember, this is a consolidation of, I believe, all the rated markets (or at least the 50 PPM markets). In the 100 largest rated markets, only 81 or 82 station cover at least 80% of their market day and night with a "usable signal" so there are very few stations capable of significant audience and the rest are niche services.
And this study is not about the AM share of listening. We already know that AM in some rated markets only gets around 1% or 2% of listening. The study is about what percentage of people use AM ever in the course of a whole month. It's a process to show legislators that AM is still of value and the figure is vastly above that for normal listening.
KRVN is not in a rated market, and KFRM does not appear in the combined Salina-Manhattan book.
Farm broadcasting is interesting, because it's super niche, but agriculture is also a huge money market, and one farmer switching from equipment brands is a multi-million dollar sale.
But the reason it is so niche is that, even in a place like Kansas, only a few people are in the profession of farming. According to this list, there are slightly more firefighters in Kansas than farmers, both registering at 1% of the population.
I assume you meant KNWN. I wasn't aware. Eyeballing it on a map, it looks like the FM stick is a good chunk of air miles outside Seattle (a rimshot, as you noted).
Is it possible that there are enough issues with the signal that a significant percentage of the audience in Seattle (where most of the PPMs would be) use the AM signal?
Yes KNWN AM does better in Seattle going north (It's about a 1.5 miles or so from the Puget Sound on the northeast side of the island) . Vashon island is just glacial till, lots of clay. KNWN is at the north end of Vashon. For it's signal to travel south to Tacoma it has over 10 miles of Vashon clay to travel over. Some notice KNWN does not do as well south in Tacoma as KIRO AM when running daytime ND. The KNWN FM signal fills in that south sound Tacoma area where the signal is not as strong going south.
I find it interesting when a friend builds a house on Vashon, they dig about 5 feet and hit clay. You walk the beach in some areas and see cliffs of clay.
I find it interesting when a friend builds a house on Vashon, they dig about 5 feet and hit clay. You walk the beach in some areas and see cliffs of clay.
Most modern farm equipment these days have either phone app pairing to the various screens inside the cab, or some actually run the application via cell/pcs/wifi right in the piece of equipment. There's no need to wake up early and listen to the ag report on the local radio station.
Yet many still do. And participate in the local issues talk shows. So...Bismarck is still in good shape - #6 overall in that survey. I have two AMs in the top 4, in the TSA; the others are our FMs.
The 30% stat David quoted was a national stat, and nationally, white males over 65 comprise about 11-12% of the entire population of the US. So even if we're talking nationwide listening stats, you're about 18% off.
True. But they're also AM. Which is apparently the point. Some AM stations still get a lot of listeners who aren't necessarily conservative, religious, or recent immigrants. It seems they're non-political, and have strong signals. Which makes sense.
KNWN is -- as pointed out earlier -- simulcast on FM, but the FM signal is weak and a 'fringe' signal in most of Seattle, though it does come in stronger in Pierce County and further south.
I wouldn't expect a response, as it would likely weaken the argument he is trying to make through manipulation of statistics. Move along.
Right. Now how many of those are there, in how many markets?
This is not a manipulation of statistics. The data is there and easily found. You use your Nielsen data and do a one-month run on cume for AM stations in each market and see what percentage of the total market 6+ or 12+ population you get.
You can then get the cume persons and add them and find out what percentage of all radio users they are.
However, I have concerns as to how this was done.
First, cume is not exclusive. A listener may use several AM stations in a month, and unless the data run only counts that person once, you will have an artificially high number. For example, a news follower in New York City may cume both WINS and WCBS (AM) and, maybe, even WABC or WOR. They can only count once as a person, even if each station has that individual as a "cumer".
Second, was the national total weighted by market size to get the national percentage? New York City (Again) is worth about 36 Fargos.
Third, a some AM/FM simulcasts are listed in Nielsen's "Single Line Reporting under just the AM call letters. Their cume is NOT AM cume, as generally those simulcasts have about 70% to 80% going to the FM.
Fourth, many, many AMs have translators. Since a translator is dependent entirely on the station it rebroadcasts, Nielsen shows the audience of an AM/FM translator combo always under the AM call letter only. So many apparent AM listeners are actually listening to an FM that is the child station to an AM parent but which, because it is FM, gets most of the listening. (In fact, many AMs with translators have reduced power, particularly at night, and depend entirely on the translator for their revenue and listening).
As I said in my original comment: If you take a look at the average of all radio markets sited in the link, not Seattle/Tacoma as you wanted to talk about; the average of those markets across the board, was around 30% of surveyed radio listeners, which correlates with the percentage of Republican voters who still support the former President, and likely listen to the kind of programming AM features, like right-wing talk.
Now, getting to your latest swerve: According to the U.S. Census Bureau statistics, July 1,2022, out of 333,287,557 persons, "65 years and over" is 16.8%. Not 11-12% as you allege. And, that 16.8% has increased since the original census information was gathered in 2021. Again, that's a percentage of 333,287,557 persons, not just registered voters, nor a percentage of just polled radio listeners.
Even you should see that's two different percentages.
If you care to click on the link, here are the statistics I just sited: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045222
I agree, it isn't manipulation per se, it is just bad data. Misleading might be a better word.
I would argue that automakers have better data on what their customers actually use and how important it is to them. Telemetry data is big business these days, and I would assume a few automakers know exactly how much time is spent with the AM tuner compared to every other infotainment option.
As David mentioned; the data gathered is an illustration by a media advocate to show the importance AM still has. Did they leave things like demographics out? Yes, because we all know the urgency would be reversed once data revealed how old the average AM listener actually was.
Other than Tesla, and some BMW or GM vehicles with OnStar subscriptions, other major manufacturers currently don't gather such real time data. Most of the decisions of what to offer regarding in-vehicle entertainment systems, is decided via consumer purchasing data.
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