Xperi Documents 40% Listening Spike For Christmas Stations Over Thanksgiving Weekend.

New listening data from millions of connected cars is enabling programmers to see changes in audience behavior faster and with larger sample sizes.

To showcase its DTS AutoStage Broadcaster Portal, Xperi tracked listening to all-Christmas stations in 1.3 million vehicles across 15 U.S. markets from Nov. 25-30. The analysis showed in-car audience share increased by an average of 40% for the all-Yule stations from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving (Nov. 25) to the Sunday after the holiday (Nov. 30).

KKCW, iHeartMedia’s AC station in Portland, OR, had the biggest bump, increasing its average market share 9.3-15.6 over the 6-day period – a stunning 68.4% increase. Four other holiday music stations posted listening gains of 50% or better, including iHeart AC WASH-FM Washington (+61.7%), Cumulus Media AC WRRM Cincinnati (+56.2%), Bonneville International AC KOIT San Francisco (+55.0) and Audacy AC WMJX Boston (+53.6%). 

It’s no surprise that listening to Christmas radio surges over the Thanksgiving holiday. The headline here is the speed at which this data is available to broadcasters and the large sample sizes: 247,433 DTS AutoStage-equipped vehicles in Los Angeles are delivering listening data; 241,822 in New York, and north of 100,000 in Washington, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Dallas. Smaller markets have smaller yet still significant sample sizes:  8,965 vehicles in Lexington, KY; 5,100 in Springfield, MO and 7,947 in Biloxi, MO. 

“This data is just one example of the unprecedented, timely and granular data that radio broadcasters can now access to understand their audiences and more precisely target their programming,” Xperi says in a press release.

Xperi updated its DTS AutoStage radio portal Nov. 1, giving stations in 250 markets access to in-car listening data at the station level by time of day, market, rank and geography in core markets and beyond. The portal’s expanded reporting capabilities include hourly flow, geographic heat maps, and the number of vehicles utilized for listening reporting, with daily updates of market sample sizes. The company says reports can trend by days, weeks, months and quarters, as well as hour-by-hour for selected days, with listening metrics such as time spent, share, tuning occasions and cume.  In addition, stations can see how they perform beyond their core market.