Glossary
Ratings & Audience
Ratings
Estimates of how many people listen to a station, used to set advertising rates and judge performance.
Ratings are the audience estimates produced by measurement services, expressed through metrics like cume, AQH, and share. They are the currency of the business: ad rates, talent evaluations, and format decisions all trace back to them.
Because ratings drive revenue, nearly every programming choice — content, clocks, imaging — is ultimately in service of them.