If you take the population of a state and spread it equally among the active radio stations in a state, what does it show?
First the disclaimers
– the population is from 2000, the numbers I have readily available
– radio waves don’t stop at state borders – people in New Jersey can hear New York City, but not the other way around
+--------------+-------+------------+-----------+ | StationCount | State | Population | PerCapita | +--------------+-------+------------+-----------+ | 140 | NJ | 8,414,350 | 60,103 | | 133 | MD | 5,296,486 | 39,823 | | 915 | CA | 33,871,648 | 37,018 | | 582 | NY | 18,976,457 | 32,606 | | 109 | CT | 3,405,565 | 31,244 | | 217 | MA | 6,349,097 | 29,259 | | 36 | RI | 1,048,319 | 29,120 | | 20 | DC | 572,059 | 28,603 | | 616 | FL | 15,982,378 | 25,945 | | 493 | IL | 12,419,293 | 25,191 | | 475 | OH | 11,353,140 | 23,901 | | 515 | PA | 12,281,054 | 23,847 | | 34 | DE | 783,600 | 23,047 | | 950 | TX | 20,851,820 | 21,949 | | 461 | MI | 9,938,444 | 21,558 | | 241 | AZ | 5,130,632 | 21,289 | | 351 | VA | 7,078,515 | 20,167 | | 435 | GA | 8,186,453 | 18,819 | | 319 | WA | 5,894,121 | 18,477 | | 121 | UT | 2,233,169 | 18,456 | | 437 | NC | 8,049,313 | 18,419 | | 110 | NV | 1,998,257 | 18,166 | | 366 | IN | 6,080,485 | 16,613 | | 275 | LA | 4,468,976 | 16,251 | | 247 | SC | 4,012,012 | 16,243 | | 384 | MO | 5,595,211 | 14,571 | | 392 | TN | 5,689,283 | 14,513 | | 375 | WI | 5,363,675 | 14,303 | | 307 | CO | 4,301,261 | 14,011 | | 318 | AL | 4,447,100 | 13,985 | | 253 | OK | 3,450,654 | 13,639 | | 374 | MN | 4,919,479 | 13,154 | | 98 | HI | 1,211,537 | 12,363 | | 100 | NH | 1,235,786 | 12,358 | | 231 | MS | 2,844,658 | 12,315 | | 331 | KY | 4,041,769 | 12,211 | | 254 | KS | 2,688,418 | 10,584 | | 330 | OR | 3,421,399 | 10,368 | | 131 | ME | 1,274,923 | 9,732 | | 301 | IA | 2,926,324 | 9,722 | | 283 | AR | 2,673,400 | 9,447 | | 192 | WV | 1,808,344 | 9,418 | | 150 | ID | 1,293,953 | 8,626 | | 201 | NE | 1,711,263 | 8,514 | | 220 | NM | 1,819,046 | 8,268 | | 91 | VT | 608,827 | 6,690 | | 135 | SD | 754,844 | 5,591 | | 125 | ND | 642,200 | 5,138 | | 221 | MT | 902,195 | 4,082 | | 155 | AK | 626,932 | 4,045 | | 157 | WY | 493,782 | 3,145 | | 5 | AS | 0 | 0 | | 19 | VI | NULL | NULL | | 14 | GU | NULL | NULL | | 6 | MP | NULL | NULL | | 100 | PR | NULL | NULL | +--------------+-------+------------+-----------+
From the chart it would appear that NJ should have the most expensive radio advertising rates in the country, and Wyoming the least expensive. This assumes that every person on the census listens to all radio stations in their state equally, or simultaneously. And since that’s clearly a false assumption, advertisers turn to ratings to decide where to invest their dollars. It’s not clear whether ratings are any better. Putting the call signs of all the local stations on a dartboard and blindly tossing darts might work as well. 🙂
You’ve touched on an important point – one of the “rules of thumb” of the value of a radio station is how many people live within the contour of a radio station. Just counting people ignores that different people have different incomes and assets (at least for now) and buy different kinds of things. A station in New Jersey is worth far more per potential listener than a station in rural Arkansas.
Part of what this shows is the effect of population density. In the NorthEast US, because so many people live in such a small area, the rules for FM are different – a special class of FM exists that is lower power but allowed to be closer to each other. Stations in Wyoming can be 100 kW because nobody cares – there just aren’t enough people to support more stations