Your Weekly Public Radio Quiz #3

1. True or False. If current audience trends continue, public radio will reach more Gen X and Gen Y listeners than Baby Boomers in 2010.

2. Which activity is done by more public radio listeners?

A) Golfing
B) Playing a musical instrument
C) Gambling at a casino

3. Which of the following statements about NPR's Carl Kasell are true?

A) He is a magician
B) He still writes his newscasts on a manual typewriter
C) He has his own "Carl Kasell" jingle
D) His mentor was Andy Griffth


Disclaimers: Answers to questions 1 and 2 are based on national averages. Your mileage may vary. Past results do not necessarily predict future performance but ignoring them can cause audience loss. This quiz is for recreational purposes only. RadioSutton does not condone wagering anything of value on the answers. Use Your Weekly Public Radio Quiz at your own risk. Ask your doctor if a career in public radio is right for you.

My Jerry McGuire Moment

Just a few of the things I’ve seen and heard that make me want to listen longer, scream, donate, find a new line of work, and keep coming back because public radio makes a positive difference in this world. You can decide which items below go with each of the categories listed above.

* The people we’ve come to know by first name: Cokie, Nina, Robert, Susan, Linda, Scott, Ira, Carl, Garrison, and, of course, Bob. The names on your list are probably different, but no less important.

* Tavis Smiley asking a highly successful 15-year old professional race car driver who gets the final word on his dating… he or his mom? The silence right after the question was golden.

* A station manger putting a contest winner’s name back in the hat because the person had not made a contribution.

* Standing in Grand Central Station listening to stories at the Story Corps booth.

* Peter Sagal interviewing Adam West.

* Program directors and program producers misrepresenting the size of their audiences.

* The way Terry Gross brings out the everyday person in famous people.

* Gifts for “dads and grads.”

* People praying for Neal Conan’s safe release and return during the first Gulf war.

* Car Talk winning a Peabody.

* Challenge grants that aren’t real.

* The fundraising professional who enthusiastically and effectively makes the case for supporting her station, even though it’s the third radio pledge drive, on top of the three pledge TV drives she's done this year.

* Any story by John Burnett.

* Alex Chadwick’s writing.

* How we sometimes bend our own rules to make a buck.

* Receptionists skilled at clearing ice from satellite dishes.

* Carl Kasell delivering “headlines” about efforts to restore funds for his coffee machine in the NPR budget.

* Anne Garrels speaking, and crying, in front of a room full of colleagues at the 2003 PRPD conference.

Quiz #2

Here are the answers to Quiz #2.

1. True or False. Young adults don't listen to public radio.

False. According to Arbitron's Public Radio Today 05, nine percent of all women between 25 and 34 listen to public radio for 6 hours in a typical week. 10% of all 25-34 men listen an average of 7 hours per week. As far back as 1998, it's been known that a greater percentage of today's young adults listen to public radio than Baby Boomers did at the same age.

See Audience 98 for more.

2. Which make of car is owned by more public radio listeners?

A) Ford
B) Honda
C) Toyota

A) Ford. According to NPR's Profile 05, 24% of public radio listeners own a Ford. About 13% own a Honda and 16% own a Toyota.


3. Which one of the lists below is compiled and maintained by NPR's Susan Stamberg?

A) NPR's female hosts and correspondents honored with major journalism awards
B) NPR employees who married one another
C) Books authored by NPR hosts, ranked by sales results


B) NPR employees who married one another. Apparently, it's a big list. See this report from USA Today in 2002.

Your Weekly Public Radio Quiz #2

Sorry for the delay in posting. Problems with Blogger.com. Here's this week's quiz.

1. True or False. Public radio is failing to reach significant numbers of young adults.

2. Which make of car is owned by more public radio listeners?

A) Ford
B) Honda
C) Toyota

3. Which one of the lists below is compiled and maintained by NPR's Susan Stamberg?

A) NPR's female hosts and correspondents honored with major journalism awards
B) NPR employees who married one another
C) Books authored by NPR hosts, ranked by sales results

The answers on Wednesday.

Disclaimers: Answers to questions 1 and 2 are based on national averages. Your mileage may vary. Past results do not necessarily predict reflect future performance but ignoring them can cause audience loss. This quiz is for recreational purposes only. RadioSutton does not condone wagering anything of value on the answers. Use Your Public Radio Weekly Quiz at your own risk. Ask your doctor if a career in public radio is right for you.

Quiz #1 Answers

The answers to Your Weekly Public Radio Quiz #1:

1. True or False. Most public radio listeners spend more time with commercial radio stations than with public radio stations.

True. On average, public radio listeners spend 42% of their total radio listening time with public radio stations. That's based on an analysis of Spring 2005 Arbitron data for the Audience 2010 project.

2. Where do public radio listeners do more of their listening during morning drive? a) At Home or b) In the Car

At Home. According to Arbitron's Public Radio Today 05, 52% of all Weekday, 6a-10a public radio listening was done at home. 35% was done in-car.

3. Which magazine has more public radio listeners as readers, Arthritis Today or Muscle and Fitness?

Muscle and Fitness. According to Profile 2005 from NPR, 2.87% of all public radio listeners looked at Muscle and Fitness in the past 6 months. That translates to about 775,000 listeners from the weekly audience. Arthritis Today was stiff competition at 2.01%, or about 543,000 listeners.

Your Weekly Public Radio Quiz

Weekend Edition Sunday has Will Shortz. Car Talk has the Puzzler. And we have...

Okay, perhaps that company is bit elite for this blog. But we thought it would be fun to have a weekly quiz with marginally interesting and useful information.

Starting next week, the quiz will appear on Mondays. The answers will post on Tuesdays.

Your Weekly Public Radio Quiz #1

1. True or False. Most public radio listeners spend more time with commercial radio stations than with public radio stations.

2. Where do public radio listeners do more of their listening during morning drive? a) At Home or b) In the Car

3. Which magazine has more public radio listeners as readers, Arthritis Today or Muscle and Fitness?

The answers on Thursday.

Disclaimers: All answers to today's quiz are based on national averages. Your mileage may vary. This quiz is for recreational purposes only. RadioSutton does not condone wagering anything of value on the answers. Use Your Public Radio Weekly Quiz at your own risk. Ask your doctor if a career in public radio is right for you.

Renewal or Resurrection?

Here’s a public radio tidbit appropriate to this Easter holiday season.

I’ve been helping some stations sort through the new CPB Community Service Incentive Program. One of the criteria for earning bonus money from CPB in this new program is major donor renewal rates. That is, the station has to meet a minimum requirement for getting major donors to contribute year after year.

CPB’s definition of a major donor is anyone who gives $1,000 or more annually to the station. CPB includes as major donors people who make bequests of $1,000 or more.

I don't know how you get those donors to renew their gifts the next year, but I’d sure like to meet the person who figures it out.

Podcasting: Hype Versus Reality

For an industry that prides itself on bringing rational discussion to every topic or idea there sure is a lot of unnecessary hype about the threat of podcasting to public radio. The most recent exercise in excess is found in this article in Wired magazine.

There's no question that, someday, podcasting will affect public radio's audience and business model. Changes are necessary. But reports of public radio's pending death by podcasting are greatly exaggerated.

Lots of folks are impressed by the more than 18 million NPR podcast downloads since August 2005, including me. That's a lot of downloads in the podcasting world. But it represents a tiny amount of public radio listening.

All those downloads came over a period of about 32 weeks -- August through March. Over that same period, listeners tuned to public radio stations 6 billion times. (27,000,000 weekly listeners * 7 tune-ins per week * 32 weeks)

Podcasting downloads represent 0.3 percent of all public radio tune-ins.

It's a mighty big assumption that all of those downloads are actually heard and that they are replacing current listening. For all we know, those downloads are enhancements to the users' current public radio listening. Some of those downloads are likely to be from listeners not in the weekly Cume.

Even at 10 times the current number of downloads, podcasting will have a minimal effect on the size of the traditional public radio audience. The more immediate issue facing public radio is the long-term collective effect of podcasting, satellite radio, and soon, wireless broadband.

If public radio stations are going to lose a meaningful amount of listening (and money) to programming on new delivery platforms, the first hit is going to come from listeners' combined use of podcasting, satellite radio, and wireless broadband.

While it is important to have a strong presence on each of these platforms, that's not the first line of defense. The single most important action we can take to protect current audiences is strengthening the current programming on individual stations. For even 10 years down the road, radio will account for the most significant portion of our audience and revenues.

That's NPR News, Not NPR Nudes

NPR's April Fool's story this year focused on the iBod, a breakthrough electronic device similar to a portable music player that helps "users regulate major body functions: heart, respiration, even cholesterol."

Imagine the surprise of anyone who heard the story and decided to learn more about the iBod on-line. The first links Google returns are from January 2005, announcing the introduction of Playboy Magazine's iBod photo service, since renamed "bodcasting."

No need to describe the nature of the Playboy service. But we will point out that, like NPR's made-up iBod, it probably does help users regulate several major body functions, heart rate and respiration among them.