Classical Stations Rock, So to Speak

Tom Taylor of Radio-Info.com reports from the Arbitron Conference in Baltimore that Classical public radio stations lead the pack in TSL (time spent listening).  He is quoting Research Director Inc.:

#1, The average non-commercial classical station has an age 6+ total week time spent listening of three hours and 19 minutes. That’s “higher than 15 of the 18 commercial format groups we analyzed.”

The report is called How is my station really doing? Public Radio Edition  and you can find it here. 

The report says we listen longer because we’re smarter and more loyal.  Well, it doesn’t really say that. It says we recycle our listeners better, whatever that means:

One of the reasons that non-commercial Classical stations typically deliver longer listening than other music formats is the format’s ability to recycle its listeners between dayparts.  Of those who listen to the average Classical station MonFri 10A-3P:

46% tune in Mon-Fri 6A-10A (indexing at 102 compared to the average station)

55% tune in Mon-Fri 3P-7P (indexing at 100)

30% tune in Mon-Fri 7P-12Mid (indexing at 136)

I think it means the format is listenable enough that you don’t want to turn it off like you do talk stations after too much yakety-yak.  Classical music is varied and wears well.  Either that, or we turn it on and let it play as background music all day long and ignore it completely.  Not me.  I can’t work when there’s music on.  I have to stop and listen.