A new report by The Media Audit names WUNC one of the top five public radio stations in the country. The report used cume ratings – the estimated number of people who have listened to the station during a given period – to determine stations’ popularity. WUNC was ranked number five, with nearly 17 percent of adults in the market listening to the station in the past seven days at the time of the report.
The report also found that public radio has the third-largest reach of all radio formats, with an estimated 22.5 million listeners in the country. Sixty-four percent of those listeners also tuned in to their public radio station more than any other channel.
According to the report, the top five public radio stations are:
- WUOM/Ann Arbor: 25.1% of adults 18 and over listened in the past seven days
- KQED/San Francisco: 18.8%
- KNOW/Minneapolis: 17.7%
- WMEA/Portland, Maine: 17.3%
- WUNC/Raleigh-Durham: 16.9%
The Media Audit’s report also looked at demographics of public radio listeners, finding that many are likely to be wealthy consumers with active lifestyles. The report determined that 67 percent of those who listened to public radio in the past week are likely to have a household income of at least $150,000, and 79 percent are heavy consumers of domestic air travel.
