RI Radio Ratings: Winners and Losers
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
The radio ratings are unforgiving and there are winners and losers. Providence radio is ranked 41st in the country. New York City is ranked #1 and Los Angeles #2 to give you a sense as to where Providence is as it relates to market size.
We have some rich radio talent here. People on the air for a long time who have built strong careers in a competitive business and they deserve some credit. Just to name a few – Tony Bristol, Paul & Al, John DePetro, Gio & Kim and Geoff Charles make the work behind the mic sound easy. But in the rough and tumble world of ratings – some stations shine above others as you will see below.
Providence is now "wired" for radio ratings
Consider this fact. Rhode Island's population is about 1-million people. Only about 630 people wear these portable rating devices and really DECIDE the ratings for the entire Providence market. That’s a big deal because the 630-people decide how about $30-million dollars in radio ad revenue gets spent in a year around here.
In the most basic of explanations, radio ratings are measured by the number of people listening at a given point. One way Arbitron measures listenership is from Monday through Sunday – 6am to midnight. This represents the total number of listeners for the entire week except for overnight radio. Arbitron also breaks down “key demographics” like the most listeners for people 25 to 54 years old which is a key number for people looking to advertise on the radio. Ratings are measured in share percentages which means the % of people listening to a particular station during a particular time period. The higher the share – the larger chunk of radio listeners a station has.
So who is #1?
According to Arbitron numbers released for December 2010, the station with the biggest number of listeners or the highest “share” of audience from Monday through Sunday – 6am to midnight is 92-ProFM “Today’s Hit Music” which measured a 10.9 % share. So, that means on a weekly average (not daily), Pro-FM has about 607,000 different listeners tuning in for at least 5-minutes. As you can see the numbers can get complicated. Right behind ProFM in 2nd place was Lite Rock 105 FM with a 9.1 % share. According to the numbers, B-101 FM is a very close 3rd and rock station 94 HJY is in at 4th. Other top rated stations include country music station WCTK and then followed by Coast 93.3 FM.
Sports is big in Little Rhody
Sports radio does quite well around these parts. One surprise is how well Boston sports giant WEEI does here. Again in the 6am to midnight round up of rating numbers, they make the top 10 easily beating out stations like Talk Radio 920 WHJJ and WBRU FM. Also doing quite well, for a Boston station, is the new 98.5 The Sports Hub which is WBZ-FM in bean town.
Who wins the talk radio war?
To say there is no real competition between WPRO-AM and Talk Radio 920 WHJJ is ah, well, an understatement. I am shocked at how big the difference is. This is not to say that WPRO-AM does not have a good product, but I thought the gap would be smaller than it is. Perhaps all those years of only offering such a small amount of live and local talk programming has to be the reason for the ratings blow-out. WHJJ Program Director Bill George knows what he is doing, he’s from here and would have no problem setting up a local line-up. Anyway, WPRO-AM registers a 5.8 % share which means on a weekly average the station had about 201,000 different listeners tuning in for at least 5-minutes– while WHJJ scored a 1.4 % share. That means WPRO-AM has about 4 times the share of the talk radio audience. WPRO AM has lost more than 15% of its audience since November.
Rhode Island’s NPR Station falls short
Rhode Island’s National Public Radio station has considerable work to do in terms of getting people to listen to them. Here’s some perspective. WRNI, RI’s NPR station, measured a whopping 1.1 % share in December 2010 – which means on a weekly average the station had about 40,000 different listeners tuning in for at least 5-minutes. Meanwhile, 1110-AM WPMZ which describes itself as a “Spanish Tropical Music” station beats WRNI. And both KISS 108 FM and Jammin 94.5, both broadcasting from Boston, beat WRNI in terms of RI listeners.
Holiday Music A Big Hit
Around the holidays the debate about too much holiday music rages on. Some people hate it while others clearly love it by the numbers. Lite Rock 105 FM kicked off holiday music in late November and Coast 93.3 switched in early November. BOTH stations saw a significant jump in listeners. Lite Rock 105, however, rang the "Christmas bell" and beat out Coast for holiday music listeners. You know what that means – early Christmas tunes are here to stay.
Providence-Warwick-Pawtucket RADIO RANKER
AQH Share for Persons 6+, Mon-Sun 6AM-Mid
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SOURCE: Arbitron, Inc.
Jeff Derderian is a former television news reporter and anchor both in Providence and Boston. He is one of the founders of the Station Education Fund. He can be reached at [email protected]
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