Someone else had to say out loud what we’ve been talking about for months within the confines of our studios. Liberal listeners who filled out ratings diaries under the old system of counting audience were, ahem, overstating how much they listened to their lib stations. Not only did commercial lib talk go down, but so did listening to National Welfare Radio—whose ratings have miraculously dropped by half since last year at the same time. Why? Well I’ve always said listeners were doing two things: voting with their diaries and voting the way they thought would make them look like the rest of the gang or “smarter” (in the case of OPB–smart people speak with a British accent, right?).
Well, former radio Program Director (mine), political operative, big game hunter and thorn in the left’s side, Gregg Clapper, says this: They were lying. Here’s what he said at Oregon Catalyst today:
What happened to KPOJ? These numbers represent the overall 12 years of age and older total audience share combining how many listeners with how long they listen. It’s called the average quarter hour share (AQH).
Fall 2008 = 3.5
Fall 2009 = 0.9This means that under the old diary system where a listener wrote down what they claimed to listen to and how long, KPOJ was thought to have 3.5% of the audience listening to them. But when the electronic gadget registered what was actually listened to and for how long, KPOJ’s rating plummeted.
KPOJ’s programming essentially stayed the same during the past year. The only thing that was different was the reporting system. It very clearly shows that KPOJ listeners were wildly overstating the amount of hours they listened. They were lying.
The trends for conservative talk went up under the new system of counting audience. Now you may say it’s because of the Presidential election that so many were listening to lib talk, but that doesn’t explain the whole drop and it doesn’t explain why time spent listening went waaaaaay down. At the same time listenership of conservative talk has gone up. A lot.