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American Radio Listening Trends reflects the radio listening patterns across 94 Arbitron Radio Metros that are measured four times a year, not the entire United States. These 94 markets represent the largest metropolitan areas in the country. The radio listening of people who reside in a county which is not part of a standard Arbitron Radio Metro is not included in his report. Although it is now surveyed four times a year, Puerto Rico is not included in this report either.
American Radio Listening Trends uses the responses from 230,000 Arbitron diarykeepers each survey from all across the country. In turn, the radio listening habits of these diarykeepers are projected to represent the listening of 141 million people age twelve and older all across the U.S.
All of the data used to produce American Radio Listening Trends are from Arbitron's syndicated Radio Market Reports.
American Radio Listening Trends is updated on a quarterly basis after the delivery of the Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall radio surveys.
On average, 2,500 Arbitron Metro qualifying commercial radio stations are represented in the production of American Radio Listening Trends.
The format shares reported in American Radio Listening Trends do not report listening to non-commercial licensed radio stations. Format shares in this report only reflect the performance of commercial stations that qualified for listing in at least one of Arbitron's standard Radio Market Reports.
The radio station formats in this report are collected via Arbitron's Station Information Package. Each survey radio stations all across the country have the opportunity to report the format of their station and other programming information directly to Arbitron. We then simply associate each station's audience estimate with their self-reported format.
Format shares in American Radio Listening Trends are calculated by adding together the Average Quarter Hour (AQH) audience estimates across all "like formatted" stations. Each format's total AQH estimate is then divided by the Total AQH to all commercially licensed stations that qualified for the Radio Market Report.
In order to benchmark how a format's share in your market compares to the Total U.S., you will first need to calculate what share your format has in your market using the same methodology as in American Radio Listening Trends. This can be accomplished by summing the AQH Persons estimate for all "like formatted" stations in your market and dividing by the total number of AQH Persons represented by those stations that "made the book" in your market. You cannot simply divide your format's total AQH Persons estimate by the Market Total AQH Persons estimate at the bottom of each page in the RMR. This figure takes into account both non-commercial and stations that did not qualify for reporting and will produce a share that is likely lower than reported in American Radio Listening Trends.
Cume Rating in the Persons Using Radio report reflects the percentage of the population that listened at least once to the radio during the week for any given daypart. In contrast, the AQH Rating will show the percentage of the population that is listening during any average quarter hour for the selected daypart. For example, 95% of the people may listen to radio during the week (Cume Rating), while an average of 16% are listening during any average quarter hour during the week (AQH Rating).
Our Audience Composition report will show you the percentage of a format's total average quarter hour audience that is among a certain age group.
American Radio Listening Trends does not provide Cume reach for any format, but it does offer this information for radio as a whole. Visit the Persons Using Radio section to learn more.
This report simply shows the percentage of radio listeners tuned to stations of a certain format during any average quarter hour. For example, in Summer '99, 9.2% of the people listening to the radio during any average quarter hour are listening to a Country formatted station. Use this report to see if your format is trending up or down.
This report shows the distribution of a format's Average Quarter Hour (AQH) audience by age and sex. For example, 60% of the people listening to Country stations during any average quarter hour across the week are between the age of 25 and 54. Use this report to see which format most efficiently reaches your target audience.
This report shows the percentage of the U.S. population that listens to radio each week and how long they listen. For example, 94.6% of the people listen to radio at least once during the week (Cume Rating). On average they listen for 21 hours per week (TSL). Use this report to see the effectiveness and power of the radio medium.
Yes. Just contact your Arbitron sales representative for this historical information.
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