Non-comms have listeners, too

PBRTV readers sometimes ask how they can find out how many people are listening to those stations at the shallow end of the FM dial (88.1 to 91.9).

Arbitron, NPR and others are quick to point out that pubcasters don’t compete on a ratings basis with commercial stations, but of course, the non-comms do show up in diaries. A nonprofit group called Radio Research Consortium tracks Arb’s numbers for subscribing public stations.

According to the Spring 2007 RRC report, if they were ranked among commercial stations, Duquesne University’s news-jazz WDUQ-FM (90.5) would have tied WLTJ-FM (92.9) for 14th place among all listeners age 12 and up. Classical WQED-FM (89.3) would be in 15th place and independent album-alternative WYEP-FM (91.3) would be 16th, both just ahead of religious-talk WORD-FM (101.5).

How did you live this long without this information?

(The region’s other public broadcasters are not Arbitron subscribers, and do not show up in RRC’s reports. As always, Arbitron ratings are copyrighted by Arbitron Inc.)