| Listeners & viewers |
By design, public radio and TV have smaller audiences than their commercial counterparts. The audience for an evening PBS program during the average quarter-hour a fifth of NBC's, for instance. One of the purposes of public broadcasting is to air programs that won't get a mass audience but are important to the people who do tune in.
But in the overall picture of American media, public broadcasting's audiences are quite sizeable. Its weekly audiences compare with those of major national magazines, cable TV networks, arthouse film hits, the hottest records and the biggest bestselling books.
This is especially true when you look at cumulative audiences ("cumes") that mount up over the course of a week: the sum of all the various smaller audiences served.
This comparison of audience sizes from a sampling of well-known media products was originally published in Current, Dec. 16, 1996.
Millions Medium Product Data details
69.6 TV NBC primetime weekly cume Nielsen, spring 1996
60 MOVIE Independence Day after 23 weeks*
28.3 TV PBS primetime weekly cume Nielsen, spring 1996
19.8 MOVIE Hunchback of Notre Dame after 24 weeks*
19.7 RADIO Public radio total weekly cume Arbitron, spring 1996
15.4 TV Discovery Channel prime. wkly. cume Nielsen, spring 1996
15.1 MAG Reader's Digest circulation Audit Bureau of Circulation, first half, 1996
13.9 TV HBO primetime weekly cume Nielsen, spring 1996
13 TV A&E Network primetime weekly cume Nielsen, spring 1996
11.2 TV Barney & Friends cume Nielsen, week of June 17
11 REC Jagged Little Pill, Alanis Morissette Soundscan, after 76 weeks
9.7 TV Nova: "Warriors of Amazon" cume Nielsen, week of April 9
9.2 MAG National Geographic circulation Audit Bureau of Circulation, first half, 1996
7.7 TV NewsHour with Jim Lehrer cume Nielsen, week of June 17
7.6 RADIO Morning Edition weekly cume Arbitron, spring 1996
5.7 TV This Old House weekly cume Nielsen, week of June 17
5 REC Falling Into You, Celine Dion Soundscan, Billboard, after 36 weeks
4.9 MOVIE That Thing You Do, Tom Hanks after 9 weeks*
4.3 RADIO ABC Prime radio net weekly cume Arbitron, spring 1995
4.3 REC East 1999 Eternal, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony Soundscan, after 70 weeks
4.1 MAG Time magazine circulation Audit Bureau of Circulation, first half, 1996
4 TV Disney Channel primetime weekly cume Nielsen, spring 1996
3.4 VIDEO Beauty and the Beast cassette sales Soundscan, after 4 years
3 MOVIE Trainspotting ticket sales after 20 weeks*
2.3 BOOK The Rainmaker, John Grisham 1995 top seller, fiction, Publishers Weekly
2.3 RADIO Car Talk weekly cume Arbitron, spring 1996
2.2 TV Wall Street Week weekly cume Nielsen, week of June 17
2.2 TV Great Performances cume Nielsen, week of April l3
"La Cenerentola"
2.1 BOOK Men Are from Mars... 1995 top seller, nonfiction, Publishers Weekly
0.2 STAGE Broadway, total weekly attendance Variety, week of Nov. 25
*Movie ticket sales estimated from Variety grosses at $5 per ticket.
Average ticket price in 1995: $4.35.
Related articles: The economics of media are
changing to allow commercial networks to make a go of serving
small audiences. The trend has been seen for years in television but may not go much
further, while the favorable economics are just now coming
together for radio.
Current Briefing on the audiences of public broadcasting.
current.org