What is the most listened to radio show in the WORLD?

Question

No description. The question is description enough!

Answer 1

AT 40 ; I think.

broadcasted from L.A. to stations around the world.

Answer 2

kiisfm?

Answer 3

BBC World Service Shipping Forecasts?

Answer 4

This is a great question - probably the best I've seen in a long time. And Steve just joined this week!

Too bad there's no empirical data that would allow an accurate answer.

I had a nice peaceful evening planned, then saw your question. So much for the quiet evening.

We need to further break the question down by the phrasing: radio show or radio station? I know you said show.

As far as radio shows: It is estimated that Robert Hemenway of VoA reaches 2 million Mandarin Chinese speakers and additional short-wave listeners. But that's not verified research and the answer to your question requires that. AT-40 certainly reaches many people, but we don't know how many worldwide. Rush Limbaugh's audience is estimated at 13-20 million weekly (and he's probably got the crown), but again, those aren't verifiable worldwide numbers - they're estimates provided by his syndicator relying on Arbitron in the US and who knows what on a worldwide basis. Many BBC programmes have big reach - but... well you know by now.

As far as stations, It's probably China Radio International or perhaps VoA (Voice of America), but we have no way of knowing for sure because those stations are not RATED on a worldwide basis. None are, nor are any radio shows.

I've included a link to an interesting article on Wiki, but... no numbers are available.

I can give you probabilities. I can give you fairly exact data on the most listened-to station in the US (Z-100, NY with about 2.5 million unique listeners per week), but that's because we have reasonably valid ratings data for the U.S. and many other countries - but not aggregated worldwide.

One day your question might be answerable. Today it is not. But I thank you for it. It made me think.

-a guy named duh

This answer was edited a couple of times as I continued to research it. Final edit at 10:11PM EDT

Answer 5

Duh would be correct but my vote up until recently was the top of the hour news briefs from the BBC world service. It was said heads of state interrupted meetings to listen.