Where Have All The KUSC Listeners Gone?

Music is the most mathematical art form, but for Los Angeles classical music station KUSC-FM 91.5 FM, the radio world's arithmetic has turned hostile, spelling nothing but trouble for its ratings, writes Mike Boehman at latimes.com.

Arbitron says KUSC has lost more than half its core audience over the last 20 months. Ratings declined moderately during 2010 and the first half of 2011, then went into a tailspin.

According to Aribtron's reports, KUSC's average core audience has sunk from nearly 26,000 listeners in 2009 to 9,500 in its latest report — a 63% fall.

KUSC's president, Brenda Barnes, says that as far as she can tell, the audience hasn't gone anywhere, not to satellite radio or other musical streams. She thinks Arbitron must be failing to include enough college graduates — the group most likely to listen to classical music radio — among the approximately 3,000 people in Los Angeles and Orange Counties whose listening habits it electronically tracks each month. To Barnes, KUSC's ratings drop is a sign of an undercount, not a decline in listenership.

But Arbitron stands by its findings. If anything, said spokesman Thom Mocarsky, college graduates are over-represented in its L.A.-area surveys.

Although age is one hallmark of classical radio listenership — an Arbitron study in 2010 found that 51% were ages 65 and older — recent findings by Station Research Group, a service organization for public radio stations, found that being a college graduate is the single most important factor for predicting whether classical music will be part of a person's radio diet.

KUSC officials also point to rising donor rolls during a period when ratings were sinking, from mid-2011 to mid-2012.

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