Drudge's outright lies about WLIB listenership

Internet gossip columnist Matt Drudge - if you can believe anything he writes - has the details on the Arbitron Winter Book:

Among all listeners 12+, it was a race to the bottom for AIR AMERICA and WLIB as mid-days went from a 1.6 share during winter 2005 to a 1.0 share winter 2006.

During PM drive, host Randi Rhodes plunged to 27,900 listeners every quarter hour, finishing 25th place in her time slot, down from 60,900 listeners every quarter hour in the fall.

What this yellow "journalist" fails to mention is that those in NYC are the savviest media consumers in the world. While the over-the-air broadcasts might not be surging ahead as they have in the past, podcasts and other downloads are surging ahead so fast that AAR has had to buy dozens of new servers.

Plus, the demos are better, and listeners trust AIR AMERICA to give them the real truth on issues and the Bush presidency.

UPDATE: The ratings are here. For the last five quarters: 1.2 1.0 1.2 1.4 0.8

The last quarter puts them in 27th place in the NYC market. Of course, that's the quarter where their downloads of podcasts exploded, so don't worry about that number so much. What matters is the quality of AAR's material, and their efforts to get the truth out there.

Note also that there are no less than eleven (11!) stations with lower ratings! Including none other than WBBR, which is owned by NYC mayor - and staunch conservative Rethuglican - "Mayor Mike" Bloomberg! And, AAR is ahead of three stations from Barnstable Broadcasting! And, as Randi Rhodes pointed out last night, podcast production was up 43% last quarter!

Posted in Meta at April 26, 2006 11:20 AM

Comments

Geee....if it is that good...why not go straight to the online crowd? Do advertisers really want to buy time in podcast for a show that has poor numbers?

Posted by: GregD at April 26, 2006 12:29 PM

Oh, I get it. This is sarcasm. Sorry, I just woke up.

Posted by: Scott at April 26, 2006 12:50 PM

Aren't most pod casts commercial free?

Posted by: meme at April 26, 2006 05:58 PM

When you lose over half your market in a short period of time, there is something wrong.

Posted by: Dan Kauffman at April 27, 2006 03:29 PM

The AAR crowd can always come up with good news even though ratings contiue to tank. Randi Rhodes says Podcast were up 43%. What does that mean they went from 5 listeners to 9?

Posted by: Randy at April 30, 2006 12:01 AM