2009 EP Survey Results

Politically you're a mix. About half liberals of one sort or another, a small number of conservatives, and quite a few socialists, anarchists, and various radicals. About half are politically active.

Seventy seven respondents volunteered their top political priorities. To summarize it in just a couple words, the theme that runs through all of these responses is dis-empowerment and a crisis of legitimacy.

Up through the last few days of the survey the gender breakout of the sample held fairly steady at about 85% men, 15% women, though by Sunday that had shifted to 90%/10%. In the 2006 survey the percentages were 95%/5%; in 2007, 98%/2%; and in 2008, 90%/10% — if I had to guess I'd say that women are currently somewhere between 10-15% of the audience, closer to 15%, and increasing their share. I strongly believe we should have a better balance and I'm very mindful of the gender gap while I work on programming. Having said that, however, I also have to admit that the EP podcast is kind of a 'guy's show.' Something of a mystery to me why, but there it is.

Age, education, and income demographics — consistently over four years — put you all in what I would call an "NPR-plus" category. Most listeners are over 40 years old, more than a third have a college degree and more than another third have a graduate degree of some sort. Median income is somewhat less than the last few years. I wonder whether that's an effect of the Great Recession?

Listeners come from all over the world. Site stats show that about 38% of listeners are from outside the U.S. But Canada, the UK, and Australia account for about 18% of listeners, which means that roughly 20% of listeners are from non-English speaking countries. This year's survey reflected that pretty well, with about a third of respondents outside the U.S., everywhere from Canada to Switzerland, to Singapore, Norway, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the UK and Australia.

A healthy majority of listeners have been listening for over two years. About 10% for four years. Those numbers really make me stop and consider: We're on a kind of journey together here — I know I've grown a lot just doing this show and I can only imagine the new ideas it may have provoked in all of you! A humbling thought...

About a quarter of respondents have donated to EP. For that I thank you. Here, I wish we had a representative sample but, unfortunately, that's not even close. I reckon something like about 4% of listeners are donors. A few carrying the rest. But that's OK.

A surprising number of listeners listen to many, many other podcasts. Just as surprising, to me, quite a few don't listen to any others. I must confess: I don't listen to many other podcasts either. ☺

The open-ended questions were most helpful. I particularly enjoyed this answer: "This survey is too long. George, how do you expect people to remember your podcasts while taking a survey?"

Several people, by the way, expressed concern that I might dumb down the show to attract a larger audience. Don't worry! We're an exclusive group, I value that, and I have no interest in dumbing anything down. Won't happen.

Who are you? A mother of 3. A semi-retired, one time full time farmer, one time full time teacher. A long-time political activist, New Yorker, screenwriter, dad. An unemployed software developer. "I was a commercial lobster fisherman for 30 years, but we lost the fishery to pollution." A retired geophysicist. A retired biochemist. A retired anesthesiologist. A journalist and film producer in New York City. "I'm a George Kenney fan!" [Thanks, Kim!] An environmental Studies and Political Science student at University of Victoria. Drive taxi in NYC, live alone, like meditation. An American musician living and trying to work in France. A quiet live-in landlord with a lot of free time (used to be a computer programmer). "I'm a 3o yr cdn gov employee."

Thanks very much to all of you for participating in this year's survey!!