Thursday through Saturday is the national convention of the advocacy organization Americans for the Arts. It’s being held in Seattle, and I will be interviewing attendees and presenters for the group’s website. I also plan to report here on who’s saying what and how it might impact us in classical music radio.
There are also three new reports out that you might want to read. One is from Chorus America that finds:
As a radio nerd, I often enjoy reading the stats on the Arbitron website. There are a couple of reports on there that came out in March, but I don’t think we’ve reported on them yet.
For instance, this one:
Ninety-five percent of adults 25-54 with a college degree and an annual income of $50,000 or more tune into radio over the course of a week.
Who is my listener?
I ask myself that question all the time as I pick music to play on my radio show. I know very little about who’s really listening, and because I’m on from 3 to 5 a.m. Tuesdays, maybe few people are. The host who follows me told me that in the last Arbitron book before I started, my slot was the lowest-rated on the station. (Nowhere to go but up!)
I’ve had calls and e-mails from a few people since I’ve started. A man in Fredericksburg, Va., listens to my show as he delivers bread to bakeries early in the morning. I like knowing that. But that’s about it for hard facts.
Thanks to Mona Seghatoleslami at WV Public Broadcasting for this guest post.
At WV Public Broadcasting, I’m responsible for the blog Classically Speaking. We started the blog in April 2008, and we’ve gradually been increasing our traffic. In March, we had 1006 page views and 789 unique views, according to Google Analytics.
These numbers aren’t just a way to feel good knowing that a lot of people are interested in reading what we have to say. Eventually enough Web traffic can also be turned into online advertising and underwriting, justification for grants, and other good things.
I was given a mission: with the help of fearless Operations Assistant Bob Powell, double the blog’s monthly traffic by the end of the summer. We did it in two months — here’s how.