List Of Most-listened-to Radio Programs
In the United States radio listenership is gauged by Arbitron and others for both commercial radio and public radio. Arbitron and similar services provide estimates by regional market and by standard daypart, but does not compile nationwide information by host. Because there are significant gaps in Arbitron's coverage in rural areas, and because there are only a few markets where Arbitron's proprietary data can be compared against competing ratings measurers, there is a great deal of estimation and interpolation when attempting to compile a list of the most-listened-to radio programs in the United States.
Talkers Magazine, a trade publication focusing on talk radio, compiles a list of the most-listened-to commercial long-form talk shows in the United States, based primarily on Arbitron data and estimated to the nearest 250,000 listeners. In addition to Talkers' independent analyses, radio companies of all formats include estimates of audience in news releases. The nature of news releases allows radio companies to inflate their listener totals by obscuring the difference between listeners at any given time, cumulative listenership over a time frame, and potential audience.
The total listenership for terrestrial radio in the year 2005 was 230 million. Sirius XM Radio has a base of 18.5 million subscribers as of 2009. American Top 40 attracts over 20 million listeners per week. Rush Limbaugh's show has been the number one commercial talk show since at least 1991 when record keeping began. NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered are the two most popular news programs.
Until the development of portable people meters, Arbitron did not have the capability to measure individual airings of a program the way Nielsen Ratings can for television, and as such, it only measures in three-month moving averages each month. Portable people meters are currently only available in the largest markets Arbitron serves. Thus, it is impossible under current survey techniques to determine the listenership of an individual event such as the Super Bowl.
Read more about List Of Most-listened-to Radio Programs: Popular Radio Shows in The United States, Past Top Programs in The United States, Current Top Stations in The United Kingdom, Worldwide Broadcasts, See Also
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“Shea—they call him Scholar Jack—
Went down the list of the dead.
Officers, seamen, gunners, marines,
The crews of the gig and yawl,
The bearded man and the lad in his teens,
Carpenters, coal-passers—all.”
—Joseph I. C. Clarke (1846–1925)
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