Radio station ratings

Ever been curious how the radio station you listen to does in the ratings? Radio & Records posts the ratings for every market on a continuing basis. The charts include the call letters (but not the frequency), the format, the owner and the rating for the past several quarters. Of course, NPR and other non-commercial stations aren’t included.

The rating shown by Radio & Records is — I think — the average number of people that listened to a radio station for at least five minutes during one quarter hour at some point during the day. This is expressed as a percentage of the total possible audience for that market.

For example, KNX-AM in Los Angeles received a 2.1 rating for Spring 2003. That means that — on the average — each day KNX-AM had 218,554 listeners — 2.1% of the 10,407,400 individuals age 12 and older in Los Angeles. Of course, it could have been a different 218,554 each day, or 360,000 one day and 77,108 another day, or 200,000 in the morning and 18,554 the rest of the day, or 200,000 men and 18,554 women. Radio stations pay dearly for all that data and you won’t find it on the Internet.