Public Radio is looking at its users to see who they are and how their use of media is changing
Here are The Results
The first thing they stipulate is the sample is self selected and has been reweighted by market size without respect to actual listenership, just population.
While there are charts comparing behavior among age groups (indicating they did ask age), there is no chart showing composition of audience by age. From web site demographics, I already know that the audience profile of the typical NPR listener is very similar to Rush Limbaugh. Diane Rehm is their peer. While there is a small portion of the audience of college age listeners, the vast majority of the audience are in the 60+ age group, female and retired. They are much more likely to have post-secondary degrees and low incomes.
Commercial radio is not immune to producing misleading statistics. The regular radio media are ecstatic yesterday that local advertising was up 10% last quarter. What they leave out is that national advertising was down, and the survey only covered 56 markets.
One statistic I’ve never seen published is what percentage of ad revenue is coming directly or indirectly from the Federal Government.
What percent of PSAs are funded by the Federal government? On Cumulus, I keep hearing one of someone saying “there is a rumor going around my school that there is going to be a draft.” The first time I heard it, I thought he owned and operated a school, then I realized he was just some actor pretending to be a punk kid in a government high school… and that it was a PSA to get him to register for the military draft.
I voted against Carter in 1980 for instituting the draft registration, and for Reagan because Reagan campaigned to eliminate it. Something not on display in the Reagan library last night, or discussed by the Republican candidates in the debates.
I think I had mentioned this before, but I’ve always been puzzled by the lack of forthcoming when I ask radio people about PSA’s and money. I figured that the answer was something analogous to “barter” trades which highly distort accounting results and create opportunity for embezzlement and tax fraud.
The thing that sort of accidentally slipped out recently was that the government -specifically the military – has been funneling advertising money through the state NAB organizations. So that PSA you heard may well have been organized by your state’s broadcaster Association – The government gives the check to the state organization, and then they choose which member stations will get the money. This totally corrupts the relationship between stations and the NAB – except that everyone knows this is how it works, at least inside the radio “biz”. How much money is involved and how much is being paid compared to commercial advertising – I don’t know. General Sarnoff wasn’t a stage name. Government and the media have always had a symbiotic relationship, especially when it is time to convince the public to increase military spending for the next big war