Arbitron

[pete]

Anyone else notice that the famous 7500 Arbitron score was for *August* 2009? My hunches are that 1)less people listen to the radio in august than any other month, an 2)that's why that month's score was chosen.

[billtetzeli]

I just looked at my copy from the handout from the Wednesday evening Advisory Board meeting. It's autumn, not August. All the figures are from spring and fall of each year. The last figures we have are from fall 2009. We won't be getting this spring's figures till this fall, as Burr said.

Also, we nearly kissed the nose of the 18,000 mark in 2004, which means I'm dropping my support of any sort of album rotation, whether it's controlled by DJ's or not. If we didn't do it then to get those listeners we sure as hell don't need it now. I still think the idea of DJ's and the listeners challenging each other to expand their musical knowledge and programming is a good one, but anything compulsory is pure BS.

[pete]

I stand corrected, Bill. Note that Chuck Taylor always resisted paying for Arbitron ratings. Where, all of a sudden, did that money from a supposedly cash strapped station come from?

[chris]

Another interesting question:

What were we doing in 2004 that achieved such high listenership?

Might we best succeed by looking at what has worked for us in the past instead of focusing on an unpopular station-transforming scheme?

[eventidalwave]

One possible reason for the decline in listenership starting in 2005 is the abandonment of our traditional "one department/one week/four times a year" marathon format. Spring 2005 marked the "first Multi-format Music Marathon" (see wtju.radio.virginia.edu/cpages/marathons/spring2005/index)

It is cold comfort to know that the hunch some of us had concerning the unsettling effect of this change on listeners, has been validated by that God of mediocrity, Arbitron.