You may have noticed that there is not much to notice on this blog lately. In the lyrics of Lucinda Williams, "Well it's over – I know it – but I can't let go."

The NPR Audience Insight & Research team began this blog as an experiment in research transparency. I do not see its end as a failure. When the blog was at its best, we shared new techniques and findings from bleeding edge research.

Perhaps we are victims of our own success. Internally, we have experienced increased demand for our time, skills and attention. We have completed some juicy work over the last year. However, much of our work is proprietary and we've been challenged to find paths to share the work in this forum.

We will continue to search for ways to share our work with you, and there will be two locations to find those posts. For digital-related research, you can turn to Inside NPR. For all other research, we will post on This is NPR.

All the best from the research-geeks (meant lovingly) at NPR!

Lori Kaplan is the Director of Audience Insight & Research.

Reports on the media habits of Millennials, those "digital natives", have given some the impression that young people never read newspapers. However, survey evidence stubbornly insists that they do.

For instance, the recent Pew State of the News Media study notes that 23% of people aged 18-24 reported reading a newspaper yesterday. As a Millennial myself, I was slightly skeptical. Were these 18-24 year olds just confused about what a newspaper is? Further evidence confirms the existence of young people looking to print: The New York Times reports that 10% of its hard copy subscribers are aged 18-24, which is on par with the 9% of this age cohort who subscribe digitally.

NPR Research has access to GfK MRI's nationwide data, collected through extensive in-person surveys, which indicates that newspaper readership is even more widespread among young adults than these statistics suggest. I looked up the exact question respondents were asked in this survey so I could be sure that Millennials were not mistaking "noticing a pile of newspapers at Starbucks" for "reading a newspaper." It turns out that survey respondents were asked to cite newspapers they had read or looked into, on printed paper. They were specifically reminded that neither electronic copies nor the newspaper's website count as printed paper. Neither does a tablet or mobile device. Still, most Millennials insist that they read newspapers!

Source: GfK MRI Doublebase 2011

Millennials keep pace with total US adults until it comes to comparing the number of heavy readers. Less than a quarter of Millennials (22%) are reading newspapers at least every other day, compared to 40% of adults overall. However 52% of them are getting their hands (and eyes) on a newspaper at least once a month and up to fourteen times a month.

Heavy newspaper readers (groups I and II) are 75% more likely than light/non readers (groups IV and V) to hold a graduate degree. Heavy readers are also more than twice as likely to be considered "Influentials," meaning people who participate in three or more public engagement activities every year (such as writing a letter to an elected official, running for public office, or attending a public meeting). These young adults are keyed into civic life and, in a crowded media marketplace, apparently prioritize carving out time to read a print newspaper.

As we have seen in the video, "Baby Thinks Magazine Is a Broken iPad," the next generation may need some instruction in print media appreciation. However, evidence points to the fact that, while they may prefer their digital devices, most Millennials know how to turn a physical printed page, and I will raise my morning coffee and paper to that.

Katy Pape is an intern with Audience Insight & Research.

The Pew Research Center recently released their annual update on the State of the News Media.

Not surprisingly, the main theme is the continuing shift of news consumption to digital, particularly mobile, platforms. Americans are rapidly adopting smart phones and tablets and using them to access news content. Radio news did slightly increase audience and revenue (both up 1%), but most of radio's revenue growth was in digital platforms – a 15% increase in online and mobile. Pew reports that: "As many as 38% percent of Americans now listen to audio on digital devices each week, and that is projected to double by 2015, while interest in traditional radio...is on the decline."

The big frontier for digital audio consumption is the car. Pew notes that two-thirds of traditional radio listening occurs away from home, much of that in cars. But, increasingly people are using cell phones to listen to online-only radio in their cars –11% in 2011, up from 6% in 2010. This behavior is most common among young people – 19% of 18-24 year olds streamed Pandora in their cars in the previous month. Car manufacturers will be making it even easier to stream audio in-car by installing technology to access the internet in automobiles (e.g. Ford's SYNC AppLink which will include NPR News). Taken together, it is clear that the in-car listening experience will be changing substantially in the coming years.

For more details on the trends in all sectors of the news media, read the Pew Research Center's report, The State of the News Media 2012.

Susan Leland is the Research Manager for NPR's Corporate Sponsorship and Development.

Arbitron and Edison Research just released the 2012 edition of The Infinite Dial study. This marks the 14^th year and 20^th report in the series that "provide estimates of emerging digital platforms and their impact on media landscape."

Not surprisingly, this year the report focused energy on the precipitous increase in usage of mobile technology and social media. However, I was a bit surprised, to hear the contention that digital platforms are not eroding radio listening. Over 90% of persons age 12 or older do listen to radio on a weekly basis, but the amount of time spent listening to radio has been diminishing over time.

Arbitron's Bedroom Project, research from 2007 conducted by Jacobs Media, highlighted the absence of radios in younger potential listeners' homes. This ethnography was an early view into changing media patterns. A review of Arbitron's own data shows that time spent listening to radio has largely been on the decline since the mid 1980's. Competition time and attention has only increased since the advent of mobile devices. A recent emarketer graph reinforces this point:

In the end, every piece of content must present value to the listener to keep him or her tuned in.

Lori Kaplan is the Director of Audience Insight & Research.

2011 was an exceptional year for news. Events overseas brought about dramatic change, such as the Arab Spring, the Tsunami in Japan, and the death of Bin Laden and Gaddafi. On the domestic side, there was the Giffords shooting in Arizona and seemingly multiple political battles and stalemates in the US Congress.

2011 was also arguably a transformational year in the way that people access the latest on major news events. Facebook feeds and Twitter updates have become a new competitor with more traditional news outlets. Still, traditional media such as television and radio remain the dominant source for the latest news and information. This week-by-week chart for 2011 shows how Arbitron's PPM measured the changes in Average Quarter-hour listening levels for NPR Newsmagazine stations in the top 25 markets. Not all major news events led to peaks in radio listening levels, but the year-high for NPR member stations stemmed around the Tsunami in Japan and the death of Bin Laden.

Ben Robins is the Research Manager for NPR Programming.

Before I fell into data analysis in graduate school, I never considered myself to be a "numbers person." High school Algebra was a blast, but in college I gravitated toward language and writing. English boasts an abundance of expressive synonyms, and I reveled in the sometimes subtle differences among them.

As a master's student in library and information science, I felt as if I were betraying books and words by focusing on research, but I soon discovered it wasn't all about numbers. Many surveys – including those we do at NPR – utilize open-ended questions to capture sentiments beyond the simplified "agree" or "disagree" statements. Such questions offer respondents a chance to explain their thoughts or reactions in greater detail, and often lead researchers to approach a subject from an angle they hadn't considered.

Nevertheless, even when we ask you to share your thoughts in your own words, we eventually have to assign your responses numerical values that can be compiled and analyzed. This presents a challenge for the researchers, because those spectacular synonyms I mentioned earlier can mean different things to different people. Trying to confidently interpret a respondent's understanding of those words can be a slippery slope. Can I assume "entertaining" and "amusing" mean pretty much the same thing to most people? Or is "amusing" more similar to "funny"? Because I wouldn't say "funny" and "entertaining" carry the same connotation.

I'll stop there, before it becomes more obvious how much I enjoy reading my desktop thesaurus. But I hope you can see my point. While we're interested in teasing out nuances in individual listeners' thoughts on NPR-related topics, we also want to know how they're connected on a broader level.

That means I get the best of both worlds when I dive into survey responses. First, I can peek into listeners' minds and gain closer insight into what they think and why. And then I get to play with my calculator.

I love being a nerd.

Jamie Helgren is an intern in Audience Insight & Research

When I was a kid, I loved playing Trivial Pursuit. Unfortunately, my siblings did not.

I was often left to myself, reading and memorizing the questions. When I did rope someone into a game, I was assured not just of winning but also causing frustration that guaranteed I would be playing by myself for another six months.

All the facts and pieces of knowledge I've acquired during my young life have served mainly to impress (or annoy) friends over a drink at a bar. Think Cliff Clavin on Cheers.

But that's not the case in NPR's Audience Insight and Research. As an intern here, I can indulge my fascination with seemingly random bits of trivia as they apply to NPR listeners. I can direct my curiosity toward investigating what they do, what they think, what they own.

And the best part? It's actually valuable information.

Every year, AIR publishes profiles answering nearly every question employees might have about NPR listeners. Do they do home remodeling jobs themselves, or hire someone else to do them? Where do they get their medical insurance? What are their preferred clothing stores?

Lately, it's been my job to check this data to make sure we're getting the numbers right. These figures help NPR attract the right sponsors to support programming and guide producers and reporters in their coverage of news and culture. Knowing our audience goes a long way in keeping listeners and users tuned in to NPR and engaged with their communities.

That said, not all of my questions lead to something useful, but they're fun to research any way. For example, how many NPR listeners own cats, drink gin, AND listened to 80s pop music in the last six months?

Answer: not many. You know who you are....

Jamie Helgren is an intern in Audience Insight & Research

Golden Rule of Analytics #1: traffic drops during the holidays. Those who follow news analytics know that it's a hard and fast rule that traffic peaks during election season and drops over the Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks. Why? Because the bulk of the audience to news sites is people goofing off at work.

Pageviews to npr.org from iOS devices

Google Analytics

And all rules are meant to be broken. So, you see that non-mobile (a.k.a. desktop) traffic dropped over the break – dipping as low as 29% below the week after Thanksgiving as expected. But wait, what are those blue lines reaching up and to the right? That's right, iPhone usage grew 94% over the holidays and iPad traffic tripled during the same time. As if I needed actual statistical proof that I'm the only person left in North America without an iPad.

And this means that...? Before we shutter further development on npr.org and devote all our energies towards creating a Very Merry NPR iPad App, keep this in mind – there's scale to take into account. While a 345% growth in iPad page views represents about 350,000 more pageviews per week, a 29% drop in non-mobile traffic is more in the 5M range. On the other hand, the holiday burst in iTraffic says something really interesting about these new platforms: they're filling those moments in our lives that are (from a pure analytics perspective) unacceptably devoid of screen time. When you think about it that way, perhaps a Very Merry NPR iPad App isn't a totally insane idea.

As a follow up to a post on mobile qualitative research, Jasper Lim reached out to me. Through this connection I learned about the conference on Market Research in the Mobile World. 2011 marked the second year of this conference. It should not surprise me that those on the cutting edge feel the need to splinter off from "traditional" research conferences at AAPOR, AMA, MRA but it is almost overwhelming to keep up. Nonetheless if you are up for the challenge, MRMW has kindly posted about 30 hours of video from its conference online, free to all. Enjoy here.

Lori Kaplan is the Director of Audience Insight & Research

The metro and streets of DC are quiet, but the restaurants are packed with holiday merrymakers. So it is the time of year that I think about getting out of town.

My kids are keen to head North . . . to the snow. I mentioned this wish to my family members living in Florida and I was greeted with blank stares followed by questions like, "Why would you want to do that?" I started to wonder if we are in our right mind or if there is something unique about my family.

Naturally I turned to Gfk MRI data to get a few US norms. It seems that listeners to public radio stations are more likely to take vacations – skiing, beach, national park. Given the audience's general interest in the world and typically higher levels of disposable income this finding is not shocking.

Now I want to be more specific because my risk-averse children are begging for a first-ever skiing adventure. A whopping 1.7% of NPR listeners took a cross-country or downhill skiing vacation last year and less than 1% of the US adult population has done the same. Of course some people do go skiing without taking a vacation. About 4% of NPR listeners went cross-country skiing and 6% downhill skiing last year. It looks like I have a small but mighty set of compatriots. Now on to packing the car with all of our toasty-winter clothes.

Happy Holidays from all of us here at Audience Insight & Research.

Lori Kaplan is the Director of Audience Insight & Research

Researchers take pride in providing answers to questions and explaining why. In this case, I have the answer, but cannot explain the why. So it's time for me take a step back and ask for some wisdom, insights and best guesses from our readers.

The question was simple enough: which day of the week has the largest broadcast audience for NPR News stations? Back in the diary days, ratings geeks determined that Thursday had the highest ratings, but this bump was largely explained away because Thursday was also the first day of the week for the paper diary. The thinking went that on the first day, diarykeepers were more likely to be thorough about recording their radio listening and less so at the end of the week.

Today, Arbitron's Portable People Meter can side-step that potential bias as meter carriers can start carrying the meter any day of the week. After some quick digging in Arbitron's dataset, I determined that in PPM-measured markets, audience ratings for NPR News-Talk stations during the recent Spring 2011 survey (an average of 12 consecutive weeks) peaked on Tuesdays – admittedly by only a small 1-2% margin over the weekday average.

Why Tuesday? If the programming is almost the same for each weekday, why would ratings peak for NPR News stations on a Tuesday? That's the question that I cannot answer. And maybe in this case, there is no specific reason why.

I dug deeper and found more surprises. On the commercial side for News stations, ratings peaked on a Thursday, and curiously for all radio – commercial, public, FM & AM, HD and streaming, audience ratings peaked on Friday.

Got any ideas? Please add your comments below.

Ben Robins is the Research Manager for NPR Programming.

I love digging in to GfK MRI's Survey of the American Consumer. This exhaustive study asks almost anything you might want to know about individuals' buying habits, attitudes, and media usage. The recent surveys have included an interesting question about media use. Respondents are asked to select attributes that describe the major types of media – TV, radio, Internet, magazines, and newspapers. Attributes include being a good source of learning, a good escape, relaxes me, and so on. Looking at how NPR listeners answer this question reveals the unique way that our listeners interact with radio versus television. NPR listeners don't listen to the radio any more than the average (index 97), but they have very different attitudes about it. NPR's audience is much more likely to describe radio as a good source of learning, trusted, makes me think, gives me good ideas, and keeps me informed. NPR listeners don't disregard TV completely, but they do watch less than the average American (index 70). They give TV a distinct place in their media mix – they turn to it specifically for entertainment, escape and relaxation.

Susan Leland is the Research Manager for NPR's Corporate Sponsorship and Development.

Thanksgiving is almost here and at this time, one of the things I am most thankful for is pie, particularly pumpkin pie, but I'm not picky. Most of the time, I'm not a big fan of pie charts for presenting data, but they do seem appropriate for this time of year...

Image of pie chart courtesy of Lifeslittlemysteries.com

Or you can take a non-traditional approach to charting your favorite pies.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Susan Leland is the Research Manager for NPR's Corporate Sponsorship and Development

The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism recently released a new study on The Tablet Revolution and What it Means for the Future of News. The study highlights how much media consumption is changing for those who have adopted tablets. Most tablet owners use them every day and spend a big chunk of time on them — an average of 90 minutes a day.

What I found most surprising is the relative usage of apps vs. the "old fashioned" browser. Apps seem to get all the press for mobile devices but only 21% of tablet users consume news mostly through apps. Twice that number consume news mostly through the browser with the rest using both equally. Those who rely on apps, however, tend to be heavier news consumers. Pew describes them as "power users" – more active users of the tablet in general, read more in-depth articles, and more satisfied with their tablet news experience.

Click here for an infographic highlighting the study's key findings.

Susan Leland is the Research Manager for NPR's Corporate Sponsorship and Development.

If I took the call of every vendor that wanted to speak with me, I would not get any work done, but I made time last week to hear about mobile qualitative research.

NPR is interested in understanding how media behavior changes as a new media platform is introduced into a person's life. Of course some changes are long term and nuanced, but others happen nearly immediately. Once these changes become entrenched, we almost forget that we behaved any differently in the past — even those of us who grew up in an era of televisions with only three networks.

We've struggled to develop a method to understand the behaviors generated by these changes and the fleeting thoughts about them, right as they are happening. Mobile qualitative seems to offer possibilities to reach into those situations and create learning opportunities.

My first question: what is mobile qualitative? Well in the briefing I received from Rosalia Barnes, it is a method that synthesizes feedback from voicemails, texts, smartphone video and digital pictures all in one place. The moderator may probe periodically during the course of the engagement.

Given that listening to NPR and public radio content can happen anywhere and any time, this method opens up a world of opportunity with minimal researcher interaction effects. I would never ask a respondent to text while driving, but once she's parked, I would love to know more about the in-car experience. Did she hook up any new devices to hear a station? Did she listen to a station located outside of her immediate area? What would she have listened to if she didn't have that device?

Clearly we do not want to limit our research to those populations who have the latest mobile technology, but in some cases, when we're attempting to examine the bleeding edge of technology, this technique may be appropriate. And in the best case, we will uncover behaviors that allow us to provide an even better listener experience.

Lori Kaplan is the Director of Audience Insight & Research