This is the third in a series of essays on the use of Arbitron ratings as a tool for Pacifica programming decision-making. While the information is specific to station KPFA in Berkeley, Pacifica's general trend of dealing with their audiences in the same manner as commercial audiences is clear in these reports.

SUBJECT: MEASURING THE AUDIENCE WITH ARBITRON

In this message, we'll begin to look at the actual Arbitron/AudiGraphics numbers that management used when planning the new format (plus whatever other information I have that seems to suggest differing conclusions). The focus in this message will be on general measures of KPFA's audience. In future messages, we'll look in more detail at demographics and dayparts--the data that supposedly justifies much of the new format.

I'm told that the main reference used in June and July when the new format was being developed was a report prepared by Walrus Research of Greenbush WI, titled "The Audience for KPFA-FM: Arbitron and AudiGraphics, January 1995". This report is based primarily upon the Spring 1994 Arbitron survey (31 March - 22 June 1994). Note that the survey period includes two weeks of marathon (8 - 22 June). I did not go back over the Folios to check for other preemptions of regular programming, because many such preemptions never get listed in the Folio. (Anyone want to go back and check through Programmer's Memos and such?) At the time this report was being prepared, the Arbitron results for the Fall 1994 survey had just been released, and a few figures from that survey are mentioned in the report. However, in general, the decisions about the new format were based on a single survey that was more than a year old.

One of the main statements Ginny Z Berson has made in justifying the need for a new format is that KPFA's total listenership has remained stagnant for the past decade, while the population of the area has grown. (I've never seen her mention that this period represents pretty closely the time since she first became Program Director and began tinkering with the format.) However, let's see what the surveys say about our general audience.

The Spring 1994 Arbitron indicates that KPFA reached an average of about 111,000 different persons per week (Cume Persons). The Walrus report mentions briefly that the figure for Fall 1994 was 138,000. I've been told by someone outside KPFA that the figure for Spring 1995 was 150,000. In other words, the audience has been growing steadily recently at a rate of around 35% per year. Not bad, I'd say. This increase is much greater than the rate of increase of population as well. The Metro Cume Rating for Spring 1994 was 2.1; that for Fall 1994 was 2.6; I don't have the value for Spring 1995. (This means that our Cume Persons rose from 2.1% of the population to 2.6% during 1994.) Doesn't seem like a picture of stagnation to me.

Some historical perspective. I first saw KPFA's Arbitron ratings in the early 1980s. During the next decade, our Metro Cume Rating fluctuated between 2.0 and 2.6. In general, it goes up when leftish people are concerned about what the government is doing (the Iran-Contra Hearings until it became clear that Reagan would not be implicated personally; the Gulf War build-up; etc.), and it goes down when people feel that more liberal forces are fixing things up a bit and they can relax a little. Thus, I would have predicted that our ratings would drop during the beginning of the Clinton administration, but would now be rising again as people become more and more concerned about the Republican Congress. This seems to fit the ratings values that are available better than Berson's view that the station has been stagnating because of poor programming.

Comparisons
What about other stations? Metro Cume Ratings for the leading commercial stations in the Spring 1994 survey were: KGO 16.8, KCBS 16.1, KNBR 14.3, KYLD 13.3, KMEL 12.9. Note that the top three stations were all News/Talk formats--the kind of station to which many people tend to tune at least once or twice during a week, just to get traffic or weather reports if nothing else. The next two were Top 40 stations that attract a lot of young radio listeners with a very limited and repetitive selection of guaranteed hits and little or no informative programming.

If you drop down several stations (to between #10 and #20 in the listing), you will find a group of stations with similar Metro Cume Ratings: KKSF (adult alternative music) 7.2, KQED (NPR talk) 6.8, KFOG (album cuts) 6.7, KABL (oldies music) 6.3. Note that KQED's slightly liberal attitudes and intelligent programming leave it with a Cume Rating less than half that of the leading commercial talk stations. I'd suggest that KPFA (with strongly leftist viewpoints, very eclectic programming including lots of "ethnic" programming, and low-budget "rough edges") is doing quite well to have around 1/3 of KQED's numbers. It's going to take a lot of moving to the center, dropping the programs that reflect the viewpoints of the oppressed, and spending huge amounts of money on better production values to move much closer to KQED's ratings.

To quote from the Walrus Report: "KPFA is down at the bottom tier of the market. Stations with cume ratings of about 2 percent include KOFY (a Spanish AM) 2.6 percent, KDIA (a black AM) 2.0 and KARA (an FM oldies out of Santa Clara) 2.3 percent." However, the report carefully avoids any mention of the ratings for other eclectic, progressive, non- commercial stations in the market.

For comparison, KQED's Cume Persons were 360,000 in Spring 1994 and 423,800 in Fall 1994. (Fall Cume Rating 8.0.)

So Who's Listening?
Now let's turn to AQH Persons (roughly, the average number of people listing at any one time). For Spring 1994, the Walrus report lists the following values: KGO 68,100; KCBS 43,800; KQED 17,300; KJAZ 9,200; KPFA 5,300. Again, KPFA has around 1/3 the audience of KQED. In Fall 1994, KQED had 21,700 and KPFA 6,100.

Finally, we turn to AQH Shares (roughly, the percentage of radios in use that are tuned to a given station), the values most often given in the press when Aribtron results are presented. In Spring 1994, the AQH PUR for the Metro Survey Area was 868,900. Thus KPFA's AQH Persons of 5,300 represented a share of 0.6. In Fall 1994, KPFA's share was 0.7 and KQED's was 2.6. Here are the top shares from the Spring 1994 Survey: KGO (news/talk) 7.8, KNBR (n/t) 5.4, KCBS (n/t) 5.0, KMEL (top 40/rhythm) 4.2, KYLZ/KYLD (top 40/rhythm) 4.1, KOIT-AM/FM (adult contemporary) 4.0. KQED's share would rank it lower than at least a dozen commercial stations. KPFA would rank lower than over 30 commercial stations.

The impression that KPFA has been losing audience may be due to its declining impact outside the Metro Survey Area. I have no historical figures on this for comparison, but the Walrus report notes that 98% of KPFA's listening audience is within the Metro Area. I certainly have a strong impression from my own contacts as programmer with audience that we have lost a lot of listeners in the northern Central Valley and the Sierra foothills. A lot of this is due to the steady relaxation of FCC controls, allowing more and more stations to overpower us in the edges of our former listening region. Furthermore, new listener sponsored stations along the North Coast may have drawn some of our listeners and subscribers away. Finally, some people have suggested that the new transmitter antenna installed several years ago led to poorer (or at least more spotty) reception in outlying areas.

This has gotten long enough. Into more details on subsequent messages. Isn't this fun? Soon you'll be qualified to be a Program Director!

MORE ON ARBITRON

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