>In the last year alone, WBAI's listenership fell by nearly 18%. It
>fell by a similar amount in the year preceding. Today WBAI's audience
>share is literally "off the charts" -- that is, virtually too small
>even to be measured. We are dead last of all the stations in our
>signal area. We actually attract a smaller percentage of our signal
>area audience than the smallest and weakest college station. Yet at
>50,000 Watts, we are a transmitting powerhouse! Our signal can reach
>a potential radio audience of 21 million, and a "real" radio audience
>(i.e., the number actually listening to their radios during any
>average quarter hour of the day) of 15 million.
>
>Yet the embarrassing fact is that our station's AQH ("average quarter
>hour") listening total for Fall 2002 was an infinitesimal 16,700.
>That means, out of 15 million people who are actually listening to
>their radios during any average quarter hour, only 16,700 were tuned
>to WBAI. Or just one tenth of one percent. Nevertheless, pitiful as
>this was, by Winter 2003, the number had fallen even lower -- to an
>AQH of only 13,800. A drop of nearly 18%.
>
>How is it possible that with a signal of 50,000 watts, we have an AQH
>audience of only 16,700? Whereas NPR (broadcasting over WNYC), with a
>feeble signal of only 5,000 watts (just one-tenth our power), is
>reaching over a million listeners per week? These are "our kind" of
>listeners -- and. in fact, many of them WERE our listeners, until
>they left us for NPR.
This is a scandal and an embarrassment. But almost no one within the station, or the whole "Pacifica community," wants to talk about them. You quickly get tagged as a racist, elitist, or sellout.
Doug