Over the summer, KUAF asked for feedback from our listeners in the 2014 KUAF Listener Survey. We heard from more than 940 listeners and it has taken weeks to sift through all the information they shared with us. A lot of the feedback we received from listeners was consistent with information we know from our Neilsen listening surveys; however, some information was new to us - especially information about listening to our HD signals, and information about online and social media interaction with our donors and listeners.
Here's a breakdown of some of the answers we received through the survey:
Of KUAF's weekday programming, it was not surprising that Morning Edition and All Things Considered were listed as the top two most important programs in our survey. Fresh Air and Ozarks at Large were listed as the third and fourth most important weekday programs. We also saw a correlation with the most popular listening day times, with drive times 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. being the most listened to.
Morning Edition and Weekend All Things Considered were listed as the most important of KUAF's weekend programs as well. Wait, Wait...Don't Tell!, This American Life and A Prairie Home Companion came in as the second, third and fourth most important weekend programs. Not surprisingly, most of you start listening a little bit later on the weekends - the most listened-to hours on the weekend were listed as 9 a.m. - 12 p.m.
What really surprised us your feedback on listening to our HD signals. We were very happy to see that about a third of respondents said they listen to KUAF2 or KUAF3 on a regular basis. The majority of those who listen do so online streaming through our website kuaf.com. The most listened-to programs from those who listen to KUAF3 where the BBC World Service, The Diane Rehm Show and Fresh Air.
The demographic breakdown of the respondents corresponds with what we know about our listening audience as well. More than 75% of respondents have a bachelor's degree or higher. Respondents zip codes were about evenly divided between Washington, Benton and Sebastian counties. And about 73% of respondents have lived in their present zip code from at least 5 years - 41% of them have been there for 15+ years! This tells us that our devoted KUAF listeners have been here for a while!
The age of those who responded tracks pretty closely with the information we get from our Nielsen ratings as well. 58% of respondents are 55 years-old or older and the age groups 45 to 54, 35 to 44, and 34 to 25 were equally represented with about 13% of responses each.
Lastly, although most of the respondents do not regularly visit our website, those who do are going often - on a weekly basis - and using the site for a number of different reasons. Using the listen live feature was the most used, with looking up a story on Ozarks at Large or a piece of music from Of Note being the second and third reasons for visiting the site. Facebook is by far the most used by our respondents of the social media platforms that were listed - which is not surprising. And also we were glad to see that the majority of you said that you use the radio to get your news more than newspapers, TV or online media!
We want to sincerely thank everyone who gave their time to take our survey. We have loved seeing your responses and it is information that is beneficial and important to us. A special thanks to those who took the time to write in comments to us about their listening. As we say, we are a community-supported radio station and literally would not be able to bring you programming without the dedication of our listeners. Thank you - for your feedback, your listening and your financial support.
I'll leave you with this - an anecdote of how one listener found KUAF on the dial:
"I remember it well. I was on an unplanned Spring Break '08 trip to do a tour of Northwest Arkansas. After camping in Mull, AR overnight, I woke up to unseasonably cool conditions and slowly packed up my Golf TDI (I miss that vehicle). Everything was packed and my destination was a family house in Huntsville, AR. My girlfriend at the time scanned the dial looking for a station as we drove the winding road to Kingston, AR. 91.3 crackled and popped, but we could barely make out Garrison's voice as he hosted the Talented People in Their 20s program. I loved APHC, and I was happy to hear familiarity.
Two months later we permanently moved to Huntsville from Conway. KUAF became a fixture. Since then, there has been pets adopted, gardens, pets buried, a wedding, a divorce, my own twenties came and went, floods, droughts, and student loans. But KUAF remains."
