• by February 15, 2001

News/talk/information webcasters were particularly popular in November due to the presidential election, according to Arbitron's Webcast Ratings.

In November, WABC-AM (www.wabcradio.com), a New York-based news, talk and information radio station streamed by Real Broadcast Networks, had 369,500 Aggregate Tuning Hours (ATH) - the sum total of all hours that listeners tune to a given channel.

Other news/talk/information webcast channels ranked in the top 25 were Seattle-based KVI-AM (www.570kvi.com), streamed by Activate and Global Media which ranked number four with 219,600 ATH. Real Broadcast Networks streamed a number of news, talk and information channels including; San Francisco-based KSFO-AM (www.ksfo560.com) which ranked number eight with 177,000 ATH; Dallas-based WBAP-AM (www.wbap.com), ranked number 11 with 171,300 ATH; Chicago-based WLS-AM (www.wlsam.com), ranked at number 17 with 149,900 ATH; and San Francisco-based KGO-AM (www.kgoam810.com), ranked at number 23 with 121,600 ATH.

" Online and terrestrial radio listenership of news/talk/information stations has increased in the month of November," said Joan FitzGerald, director of marketing, research and development, Arbitron Internet Services. "The ATH for news, talk and information programming has increased from 1,187,600 hours in October to 1,645,800 hours in November."

Arbitron Webcast Ratings currently measures 2100 stations and channels. These channels represent more than 13.5 million total hours of tuning in November. Figures in this release are based on data collected by Arbitron Webcast Ratings by January 15, 2001.

The decline in reported listening from October to November by NetRadio channels is attributed to missing raw tuning information due to technical streaming server issues. In November, raw tuning information was missing for more than 50 percent of the month.

- Anya Khait