How do I find out which radio station or program is the most popular in the US?

Question

I'm trying to find out which program or station gets the most listeners every week/day.... where can I find that info?

Answer 1

I get criticized for being long-winded sometimes, and I feel one of those coming on with your question. But a good question deserves a good answer, so a star for you! And I'm sure I'll get a thumbs-down or two from certain individuals, but here goes:

Unlike a lot of countries, there are no government owned stations or channels in the US. Nor are there any truly nationwide programs with an audience big enough to fit your question. Or the information simply isn't available to the general public (or even me, and I consult radio stations on marketing projects - but I'm only allowed the ratings for one market at a time).

Many stations are owned by huge conglomerates, and they all have several stations in many cities, but they still keep the programming localized, because that's what people here want.

National Public Radio (www.NPR.org) has a show called "Morning Edition" which is quite popular, but Arbitron, the company that does audience measurement in the US, doesn't release exact data to the general public.

There are also programs syndicated by networks such as "The Tom Joyner Show;" "Bob and Tom" and others, but again, that information is controlled by either Arbitron or RADAR (the folks who measure network radio).

XM & Sirius both have popular programming, Howard Stern on Sirius for instance, but their subscriber base hasn't yet reached a level where it would be a correct answer to your question.

So the "most popular" station is probably going to be a news station in either NY or LA. because that will be the single station with the highest incidence of unique weekly listeners. That's called the "cumulative" audience (or just Cume), there's no duplication - each listener is only counted once per week if they listen for five minutes or more. News stations have lots of different listeners, but they only listen for short periods of time. So that's going to be kind of boring - but true.

As to music stations, Of course there's KISS-FM in LA and Lite-FM and WHTZ in NY, which are very popular; but they are only heard in those cities (and on their Internet streams). Interestingly, both of those cities also have Spanish or Tropical stations at the top of the charts, too. And again, though general information is available (like who's No 1), the specific data to answer your question mathmatically isn't available unless you pay Arbitron lots of money to subscribe to their service (like exactly how many people listen to Power 95 on a typical morning between 8:00-8:15 AM?).

I once answered a similar question "WKRP" after the famous old TV show. Because it probably is the most "famous" radio station, but it never existed ;<)

Anyway, there a couple of links below that will tell you more. You may have to register to access the Ratings or Arbitron pages, but they're legit and won't spam you. Good Luck - Good Listening!
-a guy named duh

Answer 2

Arbitron ratings was the bible of radio ratings in my day.

Answer 3

idk i listen to z100 new york