WLRH After NPR: The Audience Transition
WLRH’s decision to drop NPR on October 1, 2025 is now beginning to show up in the ratings — and the early numbers reveal a station in transition.
In my previous post, I wrote about the impact on membership and development and how the Alabama Education Television Commission decided to drop NPR in the first place. (The Commission governs WLRH.)
Ratings data can quickly make your eyes glaze over. But I’m (hopefully!) breaking it down to best understand what is and what isn’t going on. WLRH receives data in the spring and fall each year. The Huntsville market uses Continuous Diary Measurement (CDM).
Here’s what that means in plain English: Because CDM averages three months at a time, any major programming change shows up slowly — and unevenly. Nielsen produces ratings every month, but WLRH only purchases two of those monthly reports each year:
June: the official Spring book = Apr–May–Jun (3-month rolling average)
December: the official Fall book = Oct–Nov–Dec (3-month rolling average)
WLRH posted a 2.0 audience share for the Dec (aka Fall) 2025 book.
This is down from October (4.3 share) and November (3.6 share).
(Share = a station’s percentage of all radio listening in a given time period.)
How the October Programming Change Fits In
Because CDM uses 3‑month averages, the shift away from NPR shows up gradually:
October 2025 CDM → Mostly pre‑change listening with a 4.3 share
November 2025 CDM → A blend of old and new with a 3.6 share
December 2025 CDM (Fall book) → Two full months of the new format with a 2.0 share
January 2026 CDM (not yet released) → The first fully clean read of the new programming
This means the December 2025 number (aka fall book, with its three-month rolling average) is a transition snapshot, not a final verdict. The first clean measurement of the new format will be the January CDM report (Nov–Dec–Jan). That number will show whether the audience is stabilizing, growing, or shrinking under WLRH’s new schedule.
Note: Even though the programming changed on October 1, Nielsen diaries don’t follow calendar months. They follow 7‑day listening weeks, which include several days of September (with NPR programming) and several days of October (without NPR programming).
What a 2.0 Share Really Tells Us (and What It Doesn’t)
The latest ratings aren’t a judgment — they’re a bridge between two very different versions of WLRH. A 2.0 share in the Fall book can reflect::
The immediate audience loss from removing NPR
The early, unsettled phase of a new programming lineup
The only thing the data can’t tell us is the exact proportion of:
Listeners who left because NPR is gone vs…
Listeners who are still adjusting to the new schedule vs…
Listeners who haven’t discovered the new programming yet
But that doesn’t mean the NPR loss isn’t the dominant factor. It’s completely reasonable — and frankly expected — that a portion of the 2.0 isn’t measuring who’s listening — it’s measuring who stopped listening when NPR went away.
That’s not emotional — that’s strategic reality. Because in public radio, the brand is the product. Radio audiences don’t behave like “if you build it, they will come.” They behave like “if you remove what I came for, I leave.”
And in a diary market, that shows up fast.