Nielsen today reissued the July 2022 PPM monthlies for San Francisco and San Jose as Empire Broadcasting kept encoding their KRTY.com Country stream as part of the total line reporting for what is now Educational Media Foundation’s “K-Love” 95.3 KLRK Los Gatos CA.
After selling the FM signal to EMF, Empire Broadcasting moved the KRTY brand and programming with all on-air talent in-tact online on Friday, June 17. In the original July ratings period, Nielsen inadvertently retained the streaming numbers with the EMF on-air programming, which registered a 5.8 share in San Jose and a 1.5 share in San Francisco. The revised numbers just for the Christian programming bring those shares down to 1.2 and 0.3 shares respectively.
That means the online only broadcasts were responsible for an approximate 4.6 share in San Jose and 1.2 in San Francisco in the July ratings period between June 23 and July 20. With the numbers adjusted to account for the discrepancies, it is not a completely accurate number but approximation. But, those numbers would be down a little over 50% from what 95.3 KRTY got in its final full month on FM in May when it had a 9.2 share in San Jose and 2.5 in San Francisco with the stream retaining half of its audience. Alpha Media’s new “Bay Country” 94.5 KBAY/92.1 KKDV sees its numbers adjusted up in San Jose from 4.1 to 4.3 this month, which would still trail KRTY.com.
Does this mean that most webcasters are capable of these numbers in a local market right now? Probably not as KRTY had 33 years of heritage with its brand and format and had enough financial backing to retain its entire staff with the move online. But for the first time we have some data to at least point out that it is possible to retain a local brand online following the loss of a broadcast signal at least in the short-term.
KRTY also is a non-subscriber meaning they’re streaming only numbers will not appear in the public ratings starting with today’s reissue, so we will not be able to follow their progress, but for once we have a glimmer into how much audience a pure-play local streaming outlet can gain in a local market.
This story first appeared on radioinsight.com