ALL RATINGS CONSIDERED: I ran down the latest Arbitron ratings in a recent Radio Waves and was promptly reminded by several readers of something I've long known, but have rarely mentioned: Those ratings don't include the Bay Area's noncommercial stations, one of which is so popular that it would give KGO, KOIT and other market leaders a run for the money.

But public stations like KQED, KALW, KCSM and KPFA aren't going for advertising money. They don't subscribe to Arbitron, and so are excluded from the rankings that the company issues every quarter.

One reader, Neil Weiser, an NPR fan who tracks radio ratings as an odd kind of hobby, hipped me to the Radio Research Consortium, a nonprofit organization, based in Maryland, that contracts with Arbitron for public radio station ratings, which it then shares with member stations.

Sure enough, RRC's Arbitron's numbers for Bay Area public stations in the 2005 fall quarter show KQED (88.5 FM) with a 4.7 percent share of the overall listening audience (age 12-plus, 6 a.m. to midnight every day). This would place it at No. 3 among all stations, behind the perennial market leader, KGO (6.1), and KOIT (4.9).

Berkeley's KPFA, by the way, is the next most popular public station, with a 1.3, followed by KCSM, the San Mateo jazz station (1.0).

In the previous quarter -- summer 2005 -- KQED was even more impressive, its 5.7 share putting it second, behind KGO's 6.4 and ahead of KMEL's 5.1.

However, as an executive at one top-rated local station noted, "We don't see public radio as a challenge because we're not selling (advertising) against them." For public stations, though, those ratings do come in handy when they're talking with potential underwriters.

Jo Anne Wallace, vice president and general manager of KQED, was happy to confirm her station's numbers, although RRC rules forbid her from releasing other than overall ratings to the press, and she isn't allowed to compare KQED's ratings with those of any commercial stations.

She does watch her sister stations in this and other markets, and notes that, over the past five years, KQED has been the No. 1 or No. 2 NPR station in cumulative audience ratings nationally; its main competition is WNYC-FM in New York. Wallace, who became station manager in 1990, three years after KQED replaced classical music with additional news and information programs, says the station's weekly "cume" has tripled since the format change, from 260,000 to more than 760,000. And that doesn't include listeners to KQEI in Sacramento, which KQED has owned since 2003.

Wallace says KQED is particularly strong in morning and afternoon drive, with "The Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered," and with local programming. Michael Krasny's "Forum," which airs from 9 to 11 a.m., "is very popular and a very successful show," she says.

"The strength of KQED's service is in-depth local and regional as well as national and international news," says Wallace, who notes that "Morning Edition" includes inserts for "The California Report" and regular local news updates delivered by Norm Howard.

While most commercial stations target specific age groups, KQED, Wallace says, targets "all listeners." The audience, she says, is split evenly between men and women, "and spans from late teens through ... well, as old as we all get!" The common denominator among KQED listeners, she adds, "is education. People are more likely to have had some college in the KQED audience than in the general population."

Although public radio might be lumped in with satellite and Internet as alternative options for people who want more than what many commercial stations offer, KQED is aggressive about new technology. Krasny's program, for example, is available on Sirius satellite, and "Forum" and several other shows are available as podcasts. "We want to make programs available to listeners," Wallace says, "when they need it, where they need it and in the form they can use."

CH-CH-CH-CHANGES: Paulie Mac (real name Paul McCaffrey) has joined Brian Murphy on the morning show on KNBR (680 AM), bumping Tim Liotta, who returns to his job as the station's creative director. Liotta and Murphy, the former Chronicle sportswriter, were teamed to replace John London in late 2004. "We made a change in the sound of the show," said Lee Hammer, acting program director. "We like Paulie's personality and energy." McCaffrey has bounced around Susquehanna's radio properties for eight years, starting as a copywriter at KNBR, and doing miscellaneous on-air work on KNBR, its sister station at 1050 AM (when it was "The Ticket") and KSAN (The Bone), where he hosted a Grateful Dead show on Monday nights (that show, for now, is ... dead.) Liotta, says Hammer, is in charge of "the overall sound and imaging of the station." Again ... With Paulie gone from his 10 a.m.-noon shift on the Bone, the lineup now runs: Lamont & Tonelli, 5-10 a.m.; Steven Seaweed, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.; Nikki Blakk, 3-7 p.m.; Billy Steel, 7 p.m.-midnight. ... Enid Goldstein, former fill-in talk show host on KGO, has joined KCTC in Sacramento (1320 AM and at KCTC.com) and is on from 4 to 7 p.m. weekdays. The witty Goldstein, who's also a journalist and essayist, previously was a top-rated talker on KSTE, which now carries the likes (and dislikes) of Bill O'Reilly. KCTC is an Air America affiliate. ...

I DID NOT KNOW THIS: For the many readers who've asked how to hear Don Imus (short of recording his 3 to 6 a.m. live broadcast on MSNBC with a timer or DVR and playing it back at a more godly hour), John Catchings has a solution. Between 6 and 9 a.m., go to www.kcaaradio.com/Weekdays.html and click on "Listen Live." "You can stream it live or put it in your iTunes library, to hear later," Catchings says. (The site is courtesy of KCAA in Loma Linda, near San Bernardino.) As for Imus getting an affiliate in San Francisco, one top radio executive says there are two problems: His ratings haven't been that strong here, and his syndication company demands the morning slot. ... Catchings also hipped me to a site from Wolfgang's Vault, which archives and markets merchandise from the late Bill Graham and the Fillmore Auditorium's high times in the '60s and '70s. It's an online radio stream offering live recordings from the Fillmore and other venues. Tons o' treasures at www.wolfgangsvault.com/player /WV player01url.htm ... If you'd like to hear a wide range of old-time radio shows for free, check out www.radiolovers.com. Veteran broadcaster Jim Schock, writing in the Broadcast Legends' newsletter, says shows include "Richard Diamond," "The Whistler," "Charlie Chan," "Gun-smoke," rarities like "My Friend Irma" and "It Pays to Be Ignorant," and the early talk show "Breakfast in Hollywood." Listeners can also copy the shows into mp3 files. "Warning," Schock says. "This freebie can be addictive" ... KFOG celebrated Mardi Gras with music, special Fogfiles reports by Peter Finch with KTVU's Ken Wayne and CBS5's Sydnie Kohara (a Louisiana native), and requests for donations to the N'awlins chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Fogheads came through with $34,520. Well done!

R.I.P.: Del Courtney, the famed big-band leader who somehow also managed to host TV and radio shows on KPIX and KSFO in the '50s and early '60s. Courtney died Feb. 11 in Honolulu at age 95. Carter B. Smith, who was a fellow KSFO staff member, says he knows how Courtney did his juggling act: "He paid zero attention to radio. He was always on the phone, booking his band and talking to people." Once, Smith recalls, the newscaster asked to interrupt the show. "We have a bad fire at Fourth and Mission," he told Courtney. "That's all I know; give it to me." Courtney opened his mike and said, "We have a bad fire at Fourth and Mission. Here's KSFO News with more details." From then on, Smith said, the news staff had the "Del Courtney Rule: 'Just say 'Give it to me!' "

WARNING: RATED "H": Howard Stern, looking to reclaim his title as the king of all media, has created a film festival of his own. He's looking for "low-brow, high-quality" five-minute shorts that "reflect all things Howard," he says. The top three entries will be shown at an awards ceremony in New York in late April and will then be broadcast on Howard TV On Demand. Winning filmmakers will receive a total of $25,000 in cash. Entry forms and rules are available at www.howard.tv.

Stern clearly doesn't need new ventures to stay in the news. CBS Radio, formerly Infinity, filed a $400 million lawsuit against him, his agent, and his new home, Sirius, claiming, essentially, that Stern breached his CBS contract and defrauded the company when he used CBS airtime to promote his upcoming move to Sirius, all to pump up the value of Sirius stock that he'd be receiving as part of his Sirius deal.

Stern said CBS was "bullying" him, and that the lawsuit was "personal." At CBS, he said, "all hell is breaking loose." He was talking about his replacements in various parts of the country. In the first partial ratings available since they took over in mid-January, they were all faring horribly. In New York, rocker David Lee Roth took Stern's morning ratings at WFNY from a 7.9 share to 1.8. Among men 18-34 -- Stern's core audience -- the numbers tumbled from 13.8 to 1.3. Adam Carolla, who replaced Stern in Los Angeles, scored a sad 0.7 for KLSX in January. Stern had left his Los Angeles affiliate with a 3.0 for December. And in Chicago, WCKG, given a DJ named Rover to sub for Stern, saw its morning numbers fall from 2.7 to 0.4. CBS has branded those stations as "Free FM." For now, that means free falling. •

Ben Fong-Torres is a freelance writer whose column appears every other Sunday. E-mail him at fongtorres@gmail.com.