Arbitron Releases 2010 Public Radio Today Report

RADIO ONLINE | Thursday, July 8, 2010 | 2:04pm CT

Arbitron has released the 2010 edition of "Public Radio Today," an analysis of audience demographics and listening patterns of the nine most popular public radio formats: News/Talk, News/Classical, Classical, News/Music, AAA, Jazz, News/Jazz, Variety Music and News/AAA. News/Talk captured nearly half of all public radio listening and remains the most-listened-to format.

"Public radio continues to be a vibrant and relevant part of many Americans' lives," said Arbitron's Chris Meinhardt. "The medium plays an important role in today's media landscape by providing important programming not available anywhere else. Public radio is also meeting the challenges of a crowded media landscape by taking full advantage of technological innovations, including podcasting, Internet streaming and HD Radio multicasting."

According to the study, News/Talk added twelve more stations in 2009. News/Classical lost 13 stations (from 263 in 2008 to 250 in 2009) but increased its share by 1 percentage point from 20.2 in 2008 to 21.2 in 2009.

The addition of nine Classical stations, combined with a steady decline in the number of commercial Classical stations, increased from a 13.7 share in 2008 to 15.4 in 2010. AAA had 11 fewer stations in Fall 2009 compared to a year earlier, but its numbers are relatively stable.

Twenty-six new Variety Music stations helped boost the format from a 1.7 share to a 2.2 share of the public radio audience in 2009. 39 stations that were formerly recognized as News, AAA or News/Music are now classified as News/AAA.

"Public Radio Today" also includes Scarborough consumer data to present a consumer profile of public radio listening across America. This in-depth profile is drawn with information on public radio listeners' household characteristics and consumption behaviors among several popular product categories.