Am visualizing a classical version of Casey Kasem: “’Classical Top 40’ is heard each week around the world on great radio stations like...” :)
BY TOM TAYLOR
>“The Aging Audience” of public radio is the newest study from Walrus Research.
George Bailey (a T-R-I reader) says listening for public radio “has long been dominated by highly-educated baby boomers”, and that Garrison Keillor’s observation about seeing more gray heads in the Prairie Home Companion live audience is right-on. That carries some implications. George is kind enough to share the results of his study of three groups of stations - #1, NPR News-based stations, #2, non-commercial jazz outlets, and #3, non-com classical stations.
His “Life stage NPR News” graph covers the years 1997-2009 and shows the median age of the audience getting older, from 46 to 52. The percentage of those employed is getting smaller. (“For NPR News station listeners, retirement is top of mind.”) For Life Stage Jazz, the median age is up from 45 to 55, and 23% of those in the audience are 60+ and not employed. For Life Stage Classical, the median age has gone from 56 to 65. Bailey suggests “the end of employment may have an impact on their willingness to contribute money.” There’s another set of graphs, ranking “core and loyalty.” NPR News-based stations have grown their percentage of “core listeners” (think P1 for commercial stations) since 1997. They’ve also grown the number of listeners. But for jazz stations, 2009 brought “a crash in loyalty.” Plenty to think about, including the impact of PPM, for public radio management and listeners.