Jon Coleman has released a major study using the granular data from the PPM as well as diaries, looking at the Rush Limbaugh program. It is a very interesting read for those who have never studied how real listeners use the radio.

It's available for download at www.colemaninsights.com

Among the findings:

1 Only 27% of those listening to Rush at the beginning of his show are still listening at the end.
2. Less than half listen for even 1 hour of the 3 hour broadcast.
3. Tune in builds at the top of the show, then begins dropping within 1 minute of start of content.
4. The final hour of the show, which often has a different topic, shows significantly lower listening.

I'm not trying in any way to dis Limbaugh. I call your attention to this study because it demonstrates rather clearly how even a personality known for a loyal following has very fluid and short term listening patterns.

If Rush were doing music radio, a song played at the start of his show and during the last quarter hour would be heard twice by only a small portion of his audience. (73% of those who were listening at the start of the show PLUS 73% of those listening in the final quarter hour, would hear the song only once. 73% of those listening in the second hour would never have heard the tune.)

There is no doubt that Limbaugh has one of the most loyal audiences around. This study will give context to that loyalty. Listeners who hang on your every word all day every day are just shy of a myth.

Number 3 is rather puzzling.

Makes sense to me... tune in to see what the topic is, decide you aren't interested, change the station.

Number 1 is puzzling in that it is that high.

I can understand #1, considering that this is a three hour show that runs during the day. Many of the listeners might be tuning in while they are driving or running errands. Some of these people can't stay with the show the entire time because they reach their destinations and have to leave the vehicle. However, they are replaced new listeners who didn't listen to the show from the beginning for the same reasons.

What I found interesting was that this research implies that people are primarily primarily motivated to listen to Limbaugh because of aspects intrinsic to the show, with the actual topics of the day being much less important. I see this, in other words, as affirming the notion that personality and presentational style do matter.

Or Limbaugh might be morphing into the rest of the ever changing electromagnetic universe, which includes the blogosphere , Cable News and the like. And that is : Whats the salacious scatalogical news sound bite for today, this morning, this hour or whatever ? And if there really isnt one RIGHT NOW , then its time to hit the button , find the remote or shake my mouse to wake up the 'tool of the antichrist' or check my Blackberry or Cell Phone internet.

I'm sure that non-radio media would be one of the things that prevents listeners from sticking through the whole show. Unfortunately, the Coleman paper didn't attempt (or wasn't able to) identify reasons why people tuned away from the show.

I have known for years that listeners don't hang on to every word I say. Even a non-scientific study of my own, talking to listeners, has proven that many times.

Bottom line: I am NOT the most important thing in your universe.

Result: Ego bruise.

Well, my experience over a three hour show is that I'm usually doing stuff. If, in the car, the tune in, then tune out thing makes sense.

It's all about the tone and agenda for the show that day. When it does not match up, I go looking. That one resonates.

If the show is working for me, then I listen, but it's in chunks. Again, the car drive might not be that long, so that's all the listening time I've got!

If at home, or streaming, or something, then it's on longer, but still listening is only for bits and pieces. Depends on mood, what's on, are the callers morons, guest, etc...

Finally, it's good to catch more than one show too. If the topic is a divisive one, then hearing a few takes on it generally provides more entertainment than one does.

BTW: The talk show I listen longest to happens to be Rachal Maddow. She does a good job of breaking the show into distinct pieces. Expectations are well set, making it easy to know what's coming and that helps with listening time.

Her variety is good too. There is Iraq news, generally goofy news of various kinds, "neat" stuff, political commentary, and personal admissions and adventures all woven in to little, nicely organized bits that are fun to follow.

Of all the hosts, I find myself looking forward to specific program segments, mostly because I absolutely know they will be there. Makes a boring time kind of worth it, as the greater flow ties things together.

IMHO, there are a lot of talkers that could learn a thing or two from both her production values and formatting.

Other talkers don't typically have that level of complexity, and consistency. The more common approach is to have a few coarse variations that either happen by day, like the Lars first amendment Friday, bit. Or it's either have a guest, or not, and those variations don't change much. On guest day, there are fewer callers. Non-guest days have more callers and or maybe some extra audio or something.

The key is it's not structured as well, and I think that impacts the tune-out factor, in that without well set expectations, it's a look and see thing by default.

...which is exactly why I feel program guide capability for music stations would help things, as would some story elements.

Same reasons too. Set expectations means having some greater investment in the content than, "does it work for me today?"

On several occasions I've found myself doing the beginning-of-show tuneout thing with Coast to Coast AM. When I listen to the show, I usually try to catch the beginning because George always opens the program with a review of the day's news headlines. I find this part of the show to be compelling on a fairly consistent basis. My decision on whether to keep the show on depends on the quality of the first hour guest. If the first hour guest is talking about some paranormal topic that I've heard discussed before, then I go to something else (Phil Hendrie, shortwave, music, reading...you name it).

Deane: I could be wrong but I think #3 suggests that people tune in for Limbaugh, but within a few minutes they decide if his content that particular day is compelling, and decide to stick around or move on.

The bullet point being, "you can't skate on reputation for even a day." Listeners will decide every single day if you're worth listening to that day.