[JPL] Arbitron's public radio study is very revealing

[Arturo Gomez]

Arbirtron's recent study, Public Radio Today: How America Listens to Public
Radio is a comprehensive study of publci radio and is very revealing. it is
broken down by formats and within each format-regions. It also has all
formats evualations. Here are headlines, page 1 of a 57 page report. I am
quite surprised by the first story thinking that I was the exception to the
rule, I guess not.


Public Radio Ratings Story Lines of the Year

Public Radio Listeners’ Interest in Most Consumer Electronics Is Falling
The good news overall for public radio broadcasters is that public radio
listeners are now less motivated to
buy consumer electronics that are alternatives to radio, with the exception
of satellite radio, in which
public radio listener interest has grown slightly. In general, the purchase
intentions of these listeners have
dropped sharply for MP3 players, HDTVs, computers and digital cameras.

Public Radio Listeners Pursue the Finer Things Online
With income and educational levels well above the national average, public
radio listeners are a high
efficiency target for numerous product categories. The public radio audience
is far more likely than the
general public to buy discretionary goods online, including artistic
pursuits of all kinds, as well as wine,
flowers, travel and technology.

Jazz Listeners Become More Affluent, More Educated
The number of Jazz listeners having at least some college education rose 3%
between Fall 2005 and 2006
to nearly 37%. The best news is that the percentage of public radio Jazz
listeners living in households
earning $75,000 or more per year soared from 32% to 38% during that time—a
huge one-year
increase—while those in households delivering less than $25,000 annually
fell sharply from 16% to 11%.
Though its ratio of men listeners slipped 1% between Fall 2005 and 2006,
Jazz has taken over as the
public radio format with the highest percentage of men listeners.

Arturo