MEASURE US BY OUR ROOTS

Thumbnail - Non-profit public broadcasting, especially public radio, is still our primary clientele. Over 80% of the industry's revenue is charitable contributions from individual listeners and corporations. That is a reflection of its greatest asset - the relationship it has developed with its audience. That relationship is based on credibility and service. That's why stations around the country rely on us. The following paragraphs, while not essential to your evaluation of Peak Fulfillment, will help you take our measure.

Market Scope - Non-commercial public broadcasting is a powerful media aggregate. The number of people who get their news from  Morning Edition or All Things Considered each day is greater than the combined daily readership of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and USA Today. Those two news programs have a larger daily audience than the weekly readership of Time Magazine or Newsweek. The number of people who receive business and economic information on any given day from Marketplace is greater than the total readership of the nation’s leading monthly business magazines - all of them combined. 

Stations -   There are about 700 non-profit, non-commercial public radio stations qualified by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  Approximately 65% are licensed to universities. Licenses for the rest are held by states, cities, libraries, school districts and independent governing boards. Over a third are joint licensees, with both public TV (PBS) and public radio operations. All are highly professional broadcast organizations, not to be confused with community or student stations. Local programming is a matter of station choice. It usually includes satellite-fed programs from two esteemed national distributors, Public Radio International and National Public Radio. 

Audience Demographics -   Self-reported as neither particularly liberal nor conservative, the public radio audience is a unique demographic of 28 million successful, affluent, well-educated, career-oriented Americans. They have a marked sensitivity to community, cultural and public affairs issues. These 28 million are disproportionately well connected, influential and effective people - opinion makers instead of opinion followers.

[The public television audience, which we also serve, is likewise considered a prize demographic by marketing experts. Nevertheless, it is somewhat less upscale, less cohesive and less committed than its radio counterpart. Unlike public radio, which has no broadcast competition, programming similar to much of the broadcast fare on PBS is also available to the audience through competing channels and cable services.]

Audience Loyalty - The commitment of this affinity group is remarkable. The relationship between public radio and its audience is often likened to that which evolves at an Ivy League university. It is common for graduates of those institutions to not only sustain an intense lifelong bond with their alma mater - but to base much of their personal identity on that association. It’s the same with public radio.

Researchers have called the audience "a virtual community", noting that its members can be defined by a cluster of shared values, interests, beliefs and attitudes, only one aspect of which is commitment to public radio. In the paraphrased words of one market analysis, "The average public radio listener considers it likely that he or she will have more in common with another randomly selected public listener than with the neighbor across the street."

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Last Update: 07/16/04