Skip to Content
Braublog

December radio ratings: Christmas music works

By David Brauer | 01/04/10

Yeah, you've tossed the tree and boxed the ornaments, but Twin Cities radio stations are still basking in the glow of Christmas.

Well, WLTE-FM and KOOL108 are, anyway. The "LiteFM" and Oldies stations gave their schedules over to Xmas tunes and saw their ratings spike for the Nov. 12-Dec. 9 period, designed by Arbitron as "December." Arbitron created a "13th month" (Dec. 10-Jan. 6) that was supposed to weed out such trickery, but LiteFM and KOOL108 simply flipped the switch in mid-November.

WLTE's share among all listeners (well, 6 and older) nearly doubled, from 3.8 to 7.0, placing it fourth in the market, while KOOL's shot up about 50 percent, from 4.1 to 6.0, good for sixth place. Y'all are just red-nosed lemmings.

Who got hurt? KQRS matched its Portable People Meter low (8.8), K102 dipped below an 8 (7.3), for the first time in PPM, and even KNOW couldn't rebound from a member-drive-depleted 4.8 in November. The sad trombone again sounded for KSTP-AM, which dipped to a new low, 1.7. The station regularly drew 3s and even a 4.5 during the Twins season. And The Current continues a downward trajectory, to 1.5.

Again, these shares do not measure the ad-friendliest demographics (say, 25-to-54), nor do they measure a station's income from ad sales or memberships.

Here's the table:

Here, in multi-colored spaghetti form, is each station's arc during PPM measurement:

Finally, the corporate cup. CBS edged into second place on WLTE's jingly bells.

Comments (6)

Submitted by Matt Steele on January 4, 2010 - 10:45am.

A few things:
1. Does the PPM measure HD radio stations? I often find myself listening to Radio Heartland, BBC News, the 99.5 Christmas subchannel (last month) or the commercial-free rock station on 100.3-2. These must be pulling away some listeners, but maybe it's negligable.

2. I am amazed that people can stomach the Christmas flavor of 102 or 108-- the same eight Christmas songs covered by every miserable band out there. Thank God fo MPR Classical.

3. Do KDWB and other dance music stations spike (in the PPM era) when people have lots of parties?

Submitted by John Olson on January 4, 2010 - 1:40pm.

My question is somewhat similar to the previous poster's #1:

Since we now have Sirius in our car, that's what we listen to. To what extent (if any) are externalities like HD radio and/or satellite radio factored into any of this?

Submitted by Adam Platt on January 4, 2010 - 3:23pm.

And David, if most agencies, etc., are buying off 25-54 or whatever, are those stats available to you?

Submitted by Jim Swanson on January 4, 2010 - 3:50pm.

David, KMOJ is public radio; it should be shaded green in the ratings chart.

To Matt, above: KDWB is a top-40 station, not a dance station.

Submitted by David Brauer on January 4, 2010 - 7:00pm.

Adam - Arbitron's rules say I can't talk numbers, only ranking, with anything other than 6+ data. I don't need to spend Joel's money on lawsuits, but I can always try for the denuded data.

Jim - I really need to write that green represents MPR, or change KMOJa's color. Thanks for the catch.

Submitted by Jim Meyer on January 4, 2010 - 10:22pm.

Does this system account for online listening/streaming? I know there is some discontent with the 98.3 The Current, but even I have to question a 50% drop. At the same time, Cities 97 gained big so maybe it's not a quirk.