Radio, Radio

This year has seen major changes in publishing, newspapers, and television. With two weeks left before the end of the year—and the decade—why not radio?

In today's New York Times, Stephanie Clifford reports that many radio stations are now using a new device called Portable People Meters to see what terrestrial radio listeners are really tuning into.

For decades, stations have determined their ratings based on weekly logs (essentially music and talk radio diaries) kept by listeners at the request of Arbitron. Now, with the Portable People Meters (an Arbitron creation), stations are able to more closely track what people are listening to.

And, in most cases, what people are listening to is crap: According to Clifford, the genre to benefit most from the closer tracking is light rock (think Air Supply, Céline Dion, etc.). In 2007, rock critic Carl Wilson was hailed by critics for his bravery in revealing his admiration for Dion in Céline Dion's Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste, but now it looks like he was onto something: Dion is loved—if quietly—by more people than would ever admit it in an Arbitron diary.

Not so Mozart. According to the research, classical music stations—already in decline with as few as 20 stations nationwide—lost 10.7 percent of its audience when tracked by the new technology.

Interestingly, the new surveys also reveal a smaller audience for talk radio, a programming format thought by many to be radio's killer app. "Talk radio’s market share declined 2.6 percent in the study of areas where the meters were used," writes Clifford.

Luckily Rush Limbaugh signed his historic $400 million deal with Clear Channel's Premiere Radio Networks before this report came out. There may be slightly fewer "dittoheads" than previously thought, but that just means each one is worth a little more to advertisers.