WQXR: "The Nation's Most Listened To Public Radio Station"?

[DToTheJ]

Recently, WQXR has hired Robert Parker as the station's Vice President. Parker has experience with classical music organizations, so it appears to be a good choice.

However, note the final paragraph at the tail end of this release trumpeting Parker's hire:
http://culture.wnyc.org/articles/features/2010/jun/21/react-parker-lead-wqxr/

"Despite losing listeners in New York City suburbs now out of range, the overall listenership of the station has steadily increased. WQXR is now the nation's most-listened-to public radio station."

I saw the latest PPM's. A 1.8 rating in the most recent edition. Who is WNYC/WQXR kidding? How can you be "the nation's most listened to" anything with a rating like that? Maybe they factor in Internet streams and all those fun things? Also, consider sister station WNYC-FM's rating in the same PPM: 2.3. Plus, WNYC-FM's cume is 921,700, to WQXR's 828,000. So, how then is the above statement that "WQXR is now the nation's most-listened-to public radio station" accurate, when you can't even get more listeners than your own sister station? Heck, in Washington, WAMU's 5.1 rating trumps both WNYC and WQXR combined! (Though I will admit, it is quite an impressive feat for a station with such a limited signal.)

I believe the folks at WQXR owe us either a clarification or a retraction. Perhaps that can be Mr.Parker's first order of business in his Vice-Presidency.

 

[radioguy39nj]

'QXR with its limited signal finished only one-tenth of a point behind full power 'PAT. With a full signal 'QXR would probably have done better than its sister station, WNYC.

 

[davideduardo]

I saw the latest PPM's. A 1.8 rating in the most recent edition. Who is WNYC/WQXR kidding? How can you be "the nation's most listened to" anything with a rating like that?

The 1.8 is a share, not a rating. The WQXR 6+ rating in New York City would be about 0.2.

However, when one talks about being the "most listened to" they are generally speaking of the same kind of number that a newspaper or magazine would use when discussing circulation. In radio, circulation is "cume" meaning the number of unique listeners each week. WQXR seems to have just about 800,000 including a bit of cuming in other markets like Trenton (possibly people who drive into the NY metro and listen there). KQED in San Francisco is in the high 700's, and WAMU is around 600,000. So the claim appears to be well founded in fact when compared with other markets. But not when compared to their own sister FM.

WNYC-FM does outcume WQXR, and you are right on that account... although the differences are very small.

I wonder if the person who wrote the release really meant "public Classical Music Station" instead of what they stated?

 

[icybluelake]

I saw the latest PPM's. A 1.8 rating in the most recent edition. Who is WNYC/WQXR kidding? How can you be "the nation's most listened to" anything with a rating like that?

I wonder if the person who wrote the release really meant "public Classical Music Station" instead of what they stated?

When I first saw this, I was pretty sure that was what was meant, and if so, that claim would seem to hold. Apparently that wasn't what was stated/written. I wasn't sure that they'd still beat KQED with its relatively much bigger share, but then New York is so much larger than the Bay Area, and anyway, David came forward with the stats, right on time. A little editing would be in order, but I don't see this as something to make a federal case about.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

I would bet that their online (and out of area) listening is huge. WQXR has a significant brand among classical music listeners around the USA.

Would that add a hundred thousand to the cume? I doubt it, but I don't think 25k would be an outsized guess for WQXR's online listening.

 

[DToTheJ]

I suspect that exactly, PT. They will likely argue that the vast online listenership contributes to being "the most listened to public radio station ever."

Oh, and thanks for the clarification of rating vs. share. After observing the old method for so long, old habits die hard... :

 

[Ai4i]

Maybe it's time for them to swap the two stations or do something with WBAI or whomever!
Off topic, but could someone please enlighten me as to why WFUV is so far north of "The Empire"?

 

[fybush]

Off topic, but could someone please enlighten me as to why WFUV is so far north of "The Empire"?

From the time the station went on the air in the 40s until about a decade ago, Fordham University operated it, logically enough, from the Fordham campus in the Bronx.

Over the years, other stations went on the air to the south and west, effectively locking WFUV into a Bronx transmitter site. You'd have to move a whole bunch of stations out of the way - WBJB 90.5 Lincroft NJ, just for starters - to make WFUV fully spaced from Empire. That's not going to happen in 2010, so the best WFUV could do after leaving the Fordham campus was to put up a fairly tall tower atop a building in a high spot in the Bronx, and try to fill in Manhattan and Brooklyn with on-channel boosters. That's still a work in progress.

 

[TheBigA]

I don't think 25k would be an outsized guess for WQXR's online listening.

It's way less. It averages about 1K.

By contrast, WNYC averages about 20K.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

It's way less. It averages about 1K.

By contrast, WNYC averages about 20K.

By average, you mean what? I'm guessing you're saying in the average hour, 1k people are listening to WQXR online. I was talking cume in the same way that the PPM reports it.

 

[TheBigA]

By average, you mean what?

1.1K estimated monthly traffic. That sounds like cume.