How to track how AirAmerica Radio is doing?

Cafe Society
1

I tried to Google this, but unfortunately the words “Air America Radio” are pretty common.

I hear regularly that Rush gets 14 million or so listeners. I have heard that Howard Stern gets 17 million listeners. If I want to track:

  • how many listeners Air America Radio is getting?
  • what the trend is for AAR listeners over time?
  • general radio-expert commentary on how AAR is doing purely as a radio show/set of shows - i.e., the person offering commentary is writing from a radio industry perspective, not from a partisan political perspective…

where would I go?

I am sure there are several Radio tracking/expert sites, but I wasn’t able to find them, or at least find one that includes analysis of AAR performance for the past month.

Thanks!

2

Arbitron is the company that rates radio stations. Recently, I was an “Arbitron Family,” which means they sent me a diary and I tracked what radio I listened to all day for a week, then sent it back to them.

The reason I bring this up is because I have XM satellite radio and specifically asked them if they wanted to know about my satellite listening habits or just regular am/fm. They wanted to know about that and/or internet streaming radio listening habits as well.

Which makes me think that somewhere on their web site will eventually be a report that breaks out am vs. fm vs. satellite, vs. internet… Unfortunately for you, I couldn’t find anything in that regard just surfing around their site. You might check it out.

You might also do a google search on industry publications, which I’m sure there are tons of…

I do not think you’ll find any information right away. I think AirAmerica will have to be around for a while before any meaningful results are tracked and reported. I will subscribe to this thread in case anyone else has more concrete suggestions than my rather nebulous ones… I’ve been listening via internet stream at work since they went on air, and in my car on XM the rest of the time. (Or, whenever I’m in my car.)

So far, I hate Ed Schultz, dislike Randi Rhodes, but love Al Franken and the Morning Sedition show (comes on before Franken). Have not yet heard Jeanine Garafalo’s show yet – I tend to be watching TV by then!

3

I suspect they sell that data, and that it’s their main if not only income, so it’s probably not going to be on the website.

4

Did you go to the web site?

They may very well sell the data, but my understanding is that the ratings are released to the general and trade media on a regular basis, but not five minutes after a program airs. I remember reading Advertising Age in journalism school and watching certain networks’ ratings over time.

I just wonder… do you have any basis for suspecting that’s Abitron’s major source of income? Or, cite, please?