By Mike Kinosian
Managing Editor
TALKERS
LOS ANGELES — The first of our four-part series of April 2017 PPM overviews commences with a thorough look at ratings results for public news/talk outlets in that sweep.
This analysis is comprised of PPM-market (public) news/talk facilities that rank in the top 20 (6+) for the April 2017 sweep, which covered March 30 – April 26.
This is not an overview of all public outlets in PPM-markets, but rather a focus on those that are primarily news/talk. By the very nature of being public stations, programming can be multi-faceted, meaning some on our "public news/talk" panel could incorporate music blocks (jazz, classical, folk, bluegrass, etc.).
Purposefully excluded from this list are noncommercial public stations that are exclusively or principally music-reliant.
Nielsen Audio only releases audience estimates for facilities that subscribe to its services. Owing to that reason, ratings stats in this exclusive analysis are limited to stations that pay Nielsen Audio for its data.
Coming up tomorrow: We take our first 2017 look at results for Major League Baseball flagships. Email managing editor Mike Kinosian at Kinosian@TALKERS.com. 
