1 of 1- RadioActive
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You'll Never Guess Which U.S. Market Has The Most AM Radio Listeners
Or maybe you will - it's Buffalo-Niagara Falls, N.Y., where 56% of listeners tune in to AM stations that are Nielsen subscribers. Any market that made it to 28% or higher is listed. This is all part of the campaign to save the band, as carmakers look to delete it. It shows at least some audience members appreciate having access to it.
Most on the list aren't even close to the biggest markets, with the exception of Chicago, the third largest in the U.S., where 48% still tune in AM on a regular basis. Seattle, #11, came in ninth. Both WGR-AM & WBEN-AM regularly do well in the ratings in the Queen City, which may well explain the success of the band in the Queen City.
Here's the top 10 of AM listening:
See the entire list here.
The Markets With The Largest Proportion Of AM Radio Listeners
- RadioAaron
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Re: You'll Never Guess Which U.S. Market Has The Most AM Radio Listeners
This is really questionable.
Somebody let me know if I've made an error or logical leap here, but...
Looking at the Chicago ratings
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The CUMEs of all the AM stations total up to 32% of the listed market population, far from the 48% listed, and even that assumes no cross-tuning between the AMs which is obviously absurd.
- paterson1
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Re: You'll Never Guess Which U.S. Market Has The Most AM Radio Listeners
I agree with Aaron. Even Buffalo doesn't add up. Only two AM stations in the top ten- #5 and #6, and seven AM stations at the bottom that have under 1% share makes it hard to believe 56% of the radio audience is listening to AM.
The article doesn't get into any detail how they arrived at these figures.
- RadioActive
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Re: You'll Never Guess Which U.S. Market Has The Most AM Radio Listeners
I can't speak to the conclusions but the data comes from Nielsen for whatever that's worth. The linked article tries to explain it this way:
"To be clear, the list, based on the Fall 2022 survey, shows the percentage of radio listeners that tune to AM radio in a month, not the percentage of all radio listening that goes to AM.
The percentages reflect metro-level data and include Nielsen subscribing stations only."
Not sure if that clears it up or muddies things further.
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Thread Starter- RadioAaron
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Re: You'll Never Guess Which U.S. Market Has The Most AM Radio Listeners
RadioActive wrote:
I can't speak to the conclusions but the data comes from Nielsen for whatever that's worth. The linked article tries to explain it this way:
"To be clear, the list, based on the Fall 2022 survey, shows the percentage of radio listeners that tune to AM radio in a month, not the percentage of all radio listening that goes to AM.
The percentages reflect metro-level data and include Nielsen subscribing stations only."
Not sure if that clears it up or muddies things further.
It means we need to look at CUME rather than share, which is why I skipped past Buffalo, as I couldn't find that information.
I couldn't even put myself into the lobbyists' shoes and manipulate the numbers to make any of this remotely true, even in a misleading way.
- Jody Thornton
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Re: You'll Never Guess Which U.S. Market Has The Most AM Radio Listeners
One thing that doesn't appear to have been yet considered: How much of this listening has taken place on FM translators or streaming apps?
Cheers,
Jody Thornton
- RadioAaron
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Re: You'll Never Guess Which U.S. Market Has The Most AM Radio Listeners
One thing that doesn't appear to have been yet considered: How much of this listening has taken place on FM translators or streaming apps?
In the US, streaming is rated separately from the OTA signal. I don't know how that was incorporated here, but the streaming numbers aren't high enough to materially change the outcome.
As for FM translators, yeah. In the Chicago example the most listened to "AM" station also has a market-covering FM signal - the primary reason Chicago is so high on the list and further weakening the point.
- fybush
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Re: You'll Never Guess Which U.S. Market Has The Most AM Radio Listeners
I haven't been able to dig really deeply into this data, but yes, on the face of it it seems tremendously flawed because it appears to count full-power FM simulcasts and translators as "AM listening," which it clearly isn't. That doesn't completely diminish Buffalo, where WGR and WBEN stand alone as AM-only (unless there's any significant listening on WKSE-HD2/3), but it definitely skews things in markets such as Chicago, NY, and Atlanta.
- Radiowiz
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Re: You'll Never Guess Which U.S. Market Has The Most AM Radio Listeners
(unless there's any significant listening on WKSE-HD2/3).
That's the other thing. How much of this is HD radio listening?
Now we have the true AM, FM repeaters, as well as HD radio 2 & 3 listeners.
Last edited by Radiowiz (June 3, 2023 3:46 pm)
RadioWiz & RadioQuiz are NOT the same person.
RadioWiz & THE Wiz are NOT the same person.
- RadioActive
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Re: You'll Never Guess Which U.S. Market Has The Most AM Radio Listeners
Here's another analysis from the U.S. regarding which markets have the most AM listeners. Buffalo comes out as #3 in the Top 25, although I'm not sure what it says that the #1 market is so small, you've probably never even heard of it.
Scroll down to see the entire list here.
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