Danny said he knows what Howard's channel charged for ad space vs. O&A, which isn't exactly the same as listener-ship. Like Opie, he's taking a small piece of data and extrapolating based on the information he does have.

Given the difference in the technology, I'm guessing Sirius does provide online listening numbers, but not traditional radio numbers to the talent. So Opie's likely looking at the online listener-ship and extrapolating, the same way Danny used the ad numbers to extrapolate. Neither represents the "true listener-ship" exactly.

There are other things you can use as a proxy. Reddit, for example, is probably used by the younger portion of a demographic only. So O&A have a more active Subreddit than Howard, even though Howard likely has a larger audience.

Jason Ellis should have a younger demographic than O&A (I'm just guessing here, I've never listened to his show). His Subreddit has 10% the subscribers. That should speak volumes.

Reddit is an awful way to figure out the metrics. One casual fan comes to this sub and they'd be turned off immediately. Jason Ellis is less socially networked but my guess is his numbers are pretty high for an afternoon show.

Stern's numbers are probably insanely high but his fans are much more casual for the most part. They aren't the types (anymore) to high jack a Facebook page.

The largest radio broadcaster in the world, Rush Limbaugh, has a subreddit presence less than 1/20 of O&A's. You are correct that Reddit is a terrible measuring stick for listeners to a radio show.

which wasn't his point at all. but whatevs guys.

That wasn't the guy I was responding to's point? What was his point?

He's talking about extrapolating from one point of data and taking everything in context. He's saying reddit skews young, and so does O&A compared to howard, so it makes sense that O&A would have a more active subreddit than howard stern, even though howard stern has a bigger audience.

He's also saying that since Ellis and O&A have a similar demographics (young), you'd expect that Ellis would have a more active subreddit (remember, reddit is young) than O&A if Ellis had a bigger audience.

It may be an invalid argument, but it specifically takes care of the objection you brought up. You totally didn't understand anything he said at all. Limbaugh's audience is old.

Who are you talking about? So, my understanding is that when I reply to people on Reddit, I'm specifically addressing the post that I am replying to. Right? So, go back and figure out who I was replying to, and whether it makes sense within that context, and if it doesn't, respond to this.

You were adding onto the person you responded to's point. In context, both of you were responding to the point of the original top comment. That's what we're all talking about here, right?

I guess that's one interpretation. But no, I was responding directly to the person that I replied to.

Thank you for being one of the few people who understood my post. I swear, this sub is infested with mouth breathers.

Obviously you didn't read or comprehend my original response. I made it clear that only young people use Reddit, so it's one proxy you'd use in conjunction with a number of proxies to estimate listener-ship. Rush's audience is old as dirt.

I made it clear that only young people use Reddit

Well, that's wrong. You said "is probably used by" originally.

Now you're wrong in saying that "only young people" use it. Reddit skews heavily towards younger users as a fact, but that's about it.

Holy shit, you're an idiot.

No, just taking you literally.

I agree. You have to look at multiple sources of data and adjust them based on what you think. Nobody knows.

For example, the vast majority of Stern's Twitter followers just follow because he's a famous guy. They're not listeners. But how many? I have no idea.

I used to think twitter was a good way to compare.... Until BoBo took off

Yeah I think you nailed it. The thing that kills me is OnA have much better content (I've tried listening to Howard, I appreciate he is a very talented radio guy) but Howard has an old audience who just go "I listen to howard" and aren't willing to try other shows. Plus I bet howard's pandering to women and cat lovers has kept the female listeners (and guys who are afraid to put OnA on when their wife/owner is in the car) and kept the funny away.

I'm 20 and I listen through youtube. Jason Ellis blows.

Wait Where did Danny say that?

I work in advertising and have the ad space pricing list for Sirius/XM. It really doesn't tell you much. The only channel that has dramatically different rates than the rest is... Hoo Hoo you guessed it.

Loyal O&A listener but I'm being honest here.

I've said it once before, you can easily ballpark O&A listener numbers just by going to social media and measuring engagement. It's a very small number of loyal listeners, creepy superfans and few casual listeners. I'd put it somewhere between 15k-20k daily and that's being generous.

You can't hide subscription numbers anymore now that we have open social graph. Look at retweets, likes, youtube views, bootleg downloads and work your way backwards.

Ellis probably has a similar number or less, given that he's chained inside the same SiriusXM silo with a same idiotic barrier for entry. His audience probably skews younger based on the FB/Twitter disparity vis-a-vis O&A.

See, I'm skeptical of the retweets, youtube videos, etc. being used as measuring sticks for listeners. John Buttfuck, spinning the top 40 can potentially have as many and/or more listeners than a syndicated, highly paid personality - but you're not going to see it in things like retweets or Facebook likes.

Interesting theory, but I believe the number is much greater. I think about 5,000 people listen to the daily YT uploads, no? And there are other sites where full shows get downloaded probably 5k per day.

A huge number of people aren't superfans, they're people with 20-30 minute commutes to work who listen and their engagement with the show ends there. There's probably more than you think.

Didn't Opie say 150,000 people have downloaded the Best of Patrice podcast? Aren't there similar numbers for "Jimmy hates animals?" Where would those people have heard about the podcast?

Does anybody know how many people listen to Marc Maron's WTF or Jay Mohr/Bill Burr's podcasts?

For the bootleg, time-shifted shows Youtube is the leading source, followed by that "other place" which has been consistently in low-100's per source - 3 in total (a few months back when the hits were public).

But these are not counted towards the Satellite active listener numbers. We're using them to extrapolate the subscriptions since advertisers or the company get fuckall from those hits.

The main problem with O&A, aside from having shitty agents, is that SiriusXM subscriber base is inflated based on a number of units shipped like with cars. On top of that, you cannot get O&A without double-subscription (premium package on top of regular sub). The barrier of entry is so high that casual listening is almost impossible. You have to actively want that show.

Podcasting is a totally different thing. Joe Rogan puts up insane numbers worthy of Arbitron top-10, as do Adam Carolla and Maron compared to SiriusXM talk. The reason for that is no barriers. It's completely automated and you can listen on your own time.

Rogan hit a peak of avg. 500k/episode a while back before settling in. But it's still very high. Consistently top podcast This American Life gets over a million per episode (a number Ira Glass revealed few months ago)

Thanks for the numbers. I can't believe Rogan is that high. I like his podcast and listen when he has an interesting guest, but his show strikes me as the same thing repeatedly when it's just him and one of his staff.

The Gay site owner said he'd get in the realms of 30k a week.

This is spot on. Thanks for posting it. If it were me this post would be in the negatives.

"...Howard is number one with online listening, we are a close second." "...Ellis is not even close to the top".

Online.

Maybe I missed the online part. I was going off of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gjhs6tqE0lI&t=13m8s

Yea, that was about two hours in. Also earlier he didn't say he had seen "the numbers" but that he had seen "some of the numbers".

No it isn't. Listen to the beginning.

No, the part that I was referencing was about two hours in. Sorry for being unclear.

Opie made it very clear despite his previous claims, that he Knows how many listeners they have.

they ALL know! look at it from a business standpoint. No advertising customer is going to pay for an ad without knowing how many people will hear it. SIRIUS must know the numbers in order to justify their prices. The talent must know their numbers too in order to negotiate their contracts. No one admits it because they all think they should be doing better than they are. We all would like to think that O&A are on the same level as Howie but they are most likely not. The same goes with Ellis's fans. Even if Sirius doesn't tell one stations numbers to another, they still have offices right next to each other. They'll hear through word of mouth from the different sales staffs.

I think that SXM management has a pretty good idea. But O&A don't choose their advertisers O&A talked about it here.

If I had to guess, SXM probably sells generic advertising, based on their content categorizing. And one of the first things I thought of when I heard that SXM doesn't tell their talent how many listeners they have was that they did that on purpose for negotiating leverage - hard to leave or ask for more money when you don't know what your numbers are.

Exactly. They keep them in the dark. Jimmy touched on this recently when he was pissed about trying to bring a sponsor (Hot Cans) in. They wanted to hit the company with a six-figure surcharge in order to advertise with O&A but they wouldn't disclose the numbers to them.

My question is this - if they don't disclose the exact #s to advertisers, then why would anyone bother?

They do discuss numbers with the advertisers. I don't think the advertisers they get ARE paying six figures. Boy butter, D-O-L-L, Steven singer. These aren't big corporations that can afford that. My guess is accountant jimmy misunderstood what someone else told him. because your right, who would bother advertising without knowing the numbers?

I don't know, that's not what Jimmy says there

I completely agree with this and always assumed so.

But I just thought, what's to stop one show from saying they do see the listener numbers? Like what if Ellis said "I see my numbers, so O&A have to see theirs". Could be a management directive, but I find it hard to believe no one ever let it slip.

Whatever the listener numbers are, in terms of general popularity they have been on a decline for a long time: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=opie%20and%20anthony%2C%20jason%20ellis&cmpt=q

Jason Ellis isn't that far away. If you throw Howard in the equation he trumps them all by leaps and bounds. However, the one thing they all have in common is they've all peaked and are on the decline/stagnant at best.

I've lost track of how many people use Google Trends to try to prove something about listener numbers on here. Frankly, you guys need to realize that satellite radio, Google, cable tv, Netflix, etc. are all competitors - in other words, just because I listen to O&A every day on satellite radio, doesn't mean that I go searching for them on Google every day. It's a little bit helpful, but I don't see why Google is some holy grail for you people.

Again, you're not understanding. These are all just proxies that just help someone as they're attempting to estimate an audience.

Yes, and I pointed out a major flaw with it. You didn't like that?

The guy didn't say, "These numbers perfectly correlate to listener-ship." Your response suggests that's his contention. Anybody can point out the flaws in these attempts to estimate the audience. You offer nothing constructive.

Nah, pointing out a major flaw in his point was very constructive, because someone might otherwise read his post and take his post literally. Kind of like when Opie says he knows the numbers, the average person might take him at his word.

Well of course it as flaws, its an estimation. However its a pretty damn good indicator of somethings general popularity. You didn't even make any real critique of the methodology of how the trends are made, just a vague generalization. You are a boob.

You didn't even make any real critique of the methodology of how the trends are made

Why would I critique Google's methodology? Google is measuring Google searches. To put it bluntly, this does not necessarily represent satellite radio listeners. It's possible to have growth in listenership and a decline in Google searches - what is that so hard to understand?

Great job with this evidence based argument. Keep talking out of your ass.

Okay, you don't like points based on logic. Fair enough. What will you do if I show you examples of specific programs that have gained in audience numbers, despite declining in Google Trends?

And vaginas beat ALL of them.

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=opie%20and%20anthony%2C%20jason%20ellis%2C%20howard%20stern%2C%20vagina&cmpt=q

Holy shit! For a singling month in February 2004, Howard stern was more popular than vagina. Well if that doesn't make him the king of media, I don't know what does.

Opie will make facts up as it's convenient for him or to save face. If Op knew real numbers he'd shut the fuck up and realize how overpaid he the entire show is.

At the end of the day, the most popular show will bill the most. O&A simply don't bill nearly as much as Stern. Now I'll sit back and watch the flood of brainwashed fans downvote this.

I really enjoy how you pretend to believe that this subreddit likes Opie.

He certainly has his defenders. That and people who believe his word as the gospel. You can like him all you want, just don't believe a word he says.

Obviously you didn't read or comprehend my original response. I made it clear that only young people use Reddit, so it's one proxy you'd use in conjunction with a number of proxies to estimate listener-ship. Rush's audience is old as dirt.

which wasn't his point at all. but whatevs guys.

You were adding onto the person you responded to's point. In context, both of you were responding to the point of the original top comment. That's what we're all talking about here, right?