Many tune in, but who listens?

One subject of great concern to all of us in the editorial writing business is audience. In the case of print editorials, who's reading the editorial page? In the case of broadcast editorials, who's listening or watching?

NCEW's Task Force on Readership, under the direction of Susan Albright, did a terrific job of looking at readership of the editorial pages. Broadcasters do not have anything similar.

Radio and television stations spend millions of dollars each year on audience surveys. Every station knows - within reasonable limits - how many are watching and listening during every 15-minute segment of the day. We know where they live, how much education they have, how old they are, their income levels, and so on.

But none of this information helps determine who is watching or who is listening to editorials.

Broadcast editorials are usually one minute to two minutes in length. No audience survey measures such short segments. We can tell with reasonable accuracy how many persons are tuned in at the time editorials are broadcast, but we can't determine whether they listen to or remember what we say.

Normally, the size of the audience is huge. For any given editorial on television, we know between 12% and 20% of the homes in the area are tuned to the station at the time editorials are broadcast. On radio, the numbers at any given time are smaller, but still significant, ranging from 3% to 10% of individuals listening to radio at the time. We also know that during each week, the cumulative audience for our television station approaches 100% of households, and for radio, about 50% of listeners.

The numbers are impressive, but in terms of meaningful knowledge about editorial listenership, they don't tell us much.

For that, we have to rely on anecdotal evidence - phone calls, letters, comments on the street, and so on.

As you would imagine, most mail is critical - sometimes bitterly so. Comparing mail written to newspapers with mail written to broadcasters would be interesting. Of course, many of those who send "letters to the editor" also send copies of those same letters to broadcast editorialists. But newspaper letter writers may (or may not) temper their prose because it may appear in print. Our letter writers are not so restrained.

For example, one writer said: "Dear Mr. Gale: My, what an arrogant, ignorant person you must be. Your editorial today was a real masterpiece, one of many instances where the ignorance of you 'intellectual jerks' was most vividly portrayed."

Another offered this encouragement: "Mr. Gale continues to sink to new depths of childishness and stupidity with his predictably idiotic editorials."

Another said: "Don't you have anyone but a fossil to deliver the editorials?"

Just the other day, a letter came from a listener who recently moved to Wisconsin. He wrote: "One thing I do not miss ... is the flatulent nonsense which issues forth from KSL in the form of your editorials.... It would be an act of moral and intellectual hygiene if you were flushed from your position at KSL, but I know that you have neither the inclination to do the honorable thing nor the skills to find gainful employment outside of your current sinecure."

We've had letters addressed to the "KSL Ministry of Propaganda" and to "Resident Idiot, KSL." Of course, the mail room brought both letters directly to my office.

Only last week, some anonymous caller left this message on my phone mail: "Your editorials are the verbal equivalent of styrofoam pellets ."

That kind of anecdotal evidence would lead us to believe we should discontinue editorials immediately and devote the time to selling books by G. Gordon Liddy and Rush Limbaugh - the Pillsbury Doughboy of prejudice.

It would be reassuring to report that we receive an equal volume of mail from listeners moved to praise individual editorials, or compliment KSL for being the only station in the market to broadcast editorials, or commend the station for a tradition of daily editorials going back to 1962. But it doesn't work that way.

To find positive reinforcement, we must depend on verbal expressions, not written responses. The positive comments come in face-to-face meetings with listeners on the street, at social gatherings, or during office visits.

Station management personnel often hear positive feedback during their own interactions with listeners and viewers. We frequently hear, second hand, about discussions of editorials at city council meetings, legislative committee meetings, staff meetings, and other gatherings where individuals come together to make decisions.

On those few occasions during the past 30 years when opinion researchers included a question about editorials, the response was positive, with a very large majority saying the fact that the station broadcasts editorials is indicative of the station's interest and involvement with the community.

In answer, then, to the question of who's listening to editorials, we know only that:

* Thousands are tuned in.

* Some are moved to unreasonable anger.

* The great majority are not so offended that they change stations.

* Community leaders pay attention.

* Most people think having editorials on the air is a good idea.

Until some researcher finds the inclination and the money to look into the matter more scientifically, well have to be satisfied with those very general conclusions.

NCEW member Don Gale is vice president of news and public affairs for KSL AM/TV in Salt Lake City.