A quest to understand the classical radio listener

How should music directors and program directors at classical radio stations decide what to play? What do listeners most appreciate about their services?

These sound like pretty important questions, right? But put yourself in the place of one of these programmers (assuming you aren’t one) and think about how you’d answer those questions. You’d have piles of Arbitron ratings at your disposal, but those only show you when listeners tune in and out. Ratings don’t tell you why they listen or what makes your station valuable to them — at most, you can only infer answers to those questions from ratings.

But since 2002, a group of public radio programmers has been commissioning research to address these concerns. In a series of studies, the Public Radio Program Directors Association (PRPD) has surveyed listeners to various public radio formats, including classical, to deepen the field’s understanding of the value their services deliver. Their results have given programmers a new vocabulary to apply to their work and, in some cases, fed debates about the role of research in programming and public radio’s overall approach to classical music.

PRPD’s first exploration of classical music’s so-called “core values” was this 2002 study. The researcher talked with classical radio listeners grouped into 12 focus groups in six markets. PRPD found that listeners primarily listened to classical radio for its soothing qualities and to achieve a clear and focused state of mind. But listeners also said that the intricate and complex nature of classical music distinguished it from formats such as soft rock or smooth jazz.

For some music programmers, it was an important revelation to learn that classical listeners, at least according to the PRPD studies, enjoy the music on a primarily emotional level, not an intellectual level. The studies also found that listeners like classical hosts to share a little bit of information about what they play — but only a little bit. Too much information, and too much talking in general, turns them off and interrupts the calming musical flow. (This is probably why classical listeners are especially hostile to on-air fund drives, as a general manager in Cincinnati observed recently. The classical station there will reduce its usual nine-day fund drive to just 14 hours this month.)

Many music hosts and programmers in public radio, on the other hand, are schooled in classical music. Unlike many of their listeners, they may perform music themselves or come from an academic background in music. The studies suggest that programmers need to understand their listeners’ state of mind when presenting music, and also take care not to talk down to them. As one music director told me, announcers should refrain from comments such as, "’As you know, Mozart wrote 41 symphonies’ — because they might not, and that’s a real turnoff."

More recently, PRPD and another research firm surveyed listeners about their musical tastes by gathering their responses to 150 30-second snippets of classical pieces. In an upcoming post I’ll look in more detail at this National Midday Classical Music Research and how stations are applying the findings.

Extra-credit reading: a 2002 article I wrote for Current about PRPD’s core values research, which has also extended to public radio’s news and jazz formats.