KKGO officially America's Most Listened To Country Station.

[Mr1derful]

All About Country.com reports that thanks to Arbitron's PPMs, KKGO can rightfully claim that it is the most listened to Country station in America. The story says US-99 in Chicago could rightfully make that claim a few years ago, even when KZLA was bragging that IT was tops in the U.S.

 

[davideduardo]

All About Country.com reports that thanks to Arbitron's PPMs, KKGO can rightfully claim that it is the most listened to Country station in America. The story says US-99 in Chicago could rightfully make that claim a few years ago, even when KZLA was bragging that IT was tops in the U.S.

It's still 21st in 18-49 and in 25-54, the sales demos, with under a 2 share. It's simply the most listened to because there are 10.9 million persons in the market and even a 1.6 share of the listening is a lot of people.

 

[nmoore6676]

All About Country.com reports that thanks to Arbitron's PPMs, KKGO can rightfully claim that it is the most listened to Country station in America. The story says US-99 in Chicago could rightfully make that claim a few years ago, even when KZLA was bragging that IT was tops in the U.S.

It's still 21st in 18-49 and in 25-54, the sales demos, with under a 2 share. It's simply the most listened to because there are 10.9 million persons in the market and even a 1.6 share of the listening is a lot of people.

I have a serious question David.

I can tune to any of the number of stations in this region and find maybe three or four that I can leave my radio on for more than one song, if at all. Now one of those stations which I can leave on is KKGO, then KRTH, KCBS, KTWV and now KSWD. So other than the AM talk stations that is pretty much my radio diet.

My question is why put down KKGO or any other station with less than a 4 (or 3, or even a 2) share? By looking at the signal locater by Zip Code site I count over 60 supposedly possible stations by levels but half or more of those are actually lost in the noise anyway so that leaves maybe 20 to 25, essentially tenable. If you divide that pie and if you assumed equal listenership where does that put you, share wise?

That made 2 questions I have to admit.

Now I realize there will never be a division such as that but my point is with so many stations there can’t be many 5 (or even 4) shares. And Arbitron takes measurement for this entire market where there are stations listed that I can not hear from my home or where I normally travel. So even if I had a meter or diary I couldn’t count for all of them.

I therefore maintain that either system is seriously flawed and is only an estimate. Unless they attached meters to every single radio receiver, which smacks of “Big Brother”, we will never really know how many are actually listening at any given time. Even then the size of the area and resulting reception issues would make it of questionable value as it is being used for a marketing tool.

 

[radioresearcher]

All About Country.com reports that thanks to Arbitron's PPMs, KKGO can rightfully claim that it is the most listened to Country station in America. The story says US-99 in Chicago could rightfully make that claim a few years ago, even when KZLA was bragging that IT was tops in the U.S.

It's still 21st in 18-49 and in 25-54, the sales demos, with under a 2 share. It's simply the most listened to because there are 10.9 million persons in the market and even a 1.6 share of the listening is a lot of people.

I have a serious question David.

I can tune to any of the number of stations in this region and find maybe three or four that I can leave my radio on for more than one song, if at all. Now one of those stations which I can leave on is KKGO, then KRTH, KCBS, KTWV and now KSWD. So other than the AM talk stations that is pretty much my radio diet.

My question is why put down KKGO or any other station with less than a 4 (or 3, or even a 2) share? By looking at the signal locater by Zip Code site I count over 60 supposedly possible stations by levels but half or more of those are actually lost in the noise anyway so that leaves maybe 20 to 25, essentially tenable. If you divide that pie and if you assumed equal listenership where does that put you, share wise?

That made 2 questions I have to admit.

Now I realize there will never be a division such as that but my point is with so many stations there can’t be many 5 (or even 4) shares. And Arbitron takes measurement for this entire market where there are stations listed that I can not hear from my home or where I normally travel. So even if I had a meter or diary I couldn’t count for all of them.

I therefore maintain that either system is seriously flawed and is only an estimate. Unless they attached meters to every single radio receiver, which smacks of “Big Brother”, we will never really know how many are actually listening at any given time. Even then the size of the area and resulting reception issues would make it of questionable value as it is being used for a marketing tool.

They always claim to be estimates. There are stations which are in the 2-share range that make a pretty nice chunk of change. But my concern with your post is you talk about the stations that you enjoy - KKGO, KRTH, JACK, KTWV, and KSWD as if this is what most people listen to.

I'm guessing you're a white male somewhere between 45-54 years old (give or take a year or two on either side) - and my apologies if I am wrong.

As David has said on countless occasions, the ethnic population of the Los Angeles metro is somewhere between 65% and 75% (this includes Hispanic, Black, Asian, and people from Middle Eastern or other countries) - all depending on the age cell. The younger the demo, the more ethnic it is.

So, let me broaden the demos for you. Los Angeles is about 57% Hispanic/Black in the most lucrative 25-54 cell. You can estimate Asian and others at least at 12-15% ... so you're probably looking at close to 70%.

But, for this exercise, the Asian and other ethnic count with the white audience.


KROQ, JACK, KIIS, KOST, KLOS, KFI, KRTH, KBIG, and KTWV are the winning stations there -- but that group accounts for 23% of the overall population and only 43% of the 25-54 population.

And as David has said, PPM is unforgiving. The No. 1 thing I've seen in my research has been the listeners will tune out more for a bad song or a bad talk break by a jock than a commercial. Because Time Spent Listening is so precious in a PPM world, there's little room for error. Every :15 is critical.

KSWD is way too unfamiliar for an average listener as is Indie. And, with less TSL in PPM, they can't overcome the cume challenge.

 

[davideduardo]

My question is why put down KKGO or any other station with less than a 4 (or 3, or even a 2) share? By looking at the signal locater by Zip Code site I count over 60 supposedly possible stations by levels but half or more of those are actually lost in the noise anyway so that leaves maybe 20 to 25, essentially tenable. If you divide that pie and if you assumed equal listenership where does that put you, share wise?

I'm not putting down KKGO. I am putting it in perspective. In the sales demos, there are 20 or so stations that do better by getting higher audience shares.

There are, per BIA, 92 stations licensed to the LA Metropolitan Survey Area. And there are a few dozen or so from outside the market in adjacent counties that are capable of getting at least some listening in the LA MSA.

That means there is less than 1 share per station on a "level playing field". The fact is that only 58 stations show up with a 0.1 or more in the PPM book that came out last Monday. But, like the infomercials say, "there's more!" The top 10 stations have roughly 43% of the audience. And the top 12 have just about half of the audience.

That means that the other eighty LA MSA stations and the out-of-metro stations have 50 shares to divide.

Now I realize there will never be a division such as that but my point is with so many stations there can’t be many 5 (or even 4) shares.

The top 12 stations all have from a 3.1 to a 5.8. 5 have a 4 or over.

And Arbitron takes measurement for this entire market where there are stations listed that I can not hear from my home or where I normally travel. So even if I had a meter or diary I couldn't’t count for all of them.

Arbitron has divided the two-county market into a whole bunch of geographical sub-regions. These include the subdivision of LA County into regions, and then there are High Density Hispanic and Black areas (HDBA's and HDHA's), all of which have metered households in proportion to the population size of each of the areas.

So if a station covers only a part of the market, Arbitron's geographical proportionality system would guarantee that the area it does covered is sampled in proportion to the population in that area. Smaller stations are on a relatively level playing field insofar as the way meters are distributed. Where they are not on an equal basis is in the ability to compete, because people who move around the market from home to work and while out will not use a station that can't "accompany" them at all times and places as much as one that does. This is the same issue that affects/affected AM daytimers back in the last century when AM was more viable.

I therefore maintain that either system is seriously flawed and is only an estimate.

All polls are estimates based on a statistical sample. The Arbitron printed books used to say "Audience Estimates" on the frontispiece.

Unless they attached meters to every single radio receiver, which smacks of “Big Brother”, we will never really know how many are actually listening at any given time.

No, but we can come amazingly close. And the alternative, a census, would cost more each time than the gross billings of every station in the market.

The way we know a poll works is to do a replication study. That means sampling more than one group of the same size. If the results are statistically the same (meaning that they are within the margin of error the users, in this case advertisers, will accept) then the sample is big enough. Adding more sample will not, then, increase reliability within the given margin of error (there are other ways of doing replication, such as doing a large sample and comparing subsets selected via a random number generator, etc.).

The samples used for ratings are mostly determined by what the market's stations can afford.

Even then the size of the area and resulting reception issues would make it of questionable value as it is being used for a marketing tool.

Ratings are used predominantly for sales.

And since there is proportionality in the geographic regions of the market, all signals are eqally able to demonstate their ability to get audience in the areas they do cover.

 

[hillbillyRockstar]

Good for KKGO. That's what I listen to.