1st Place: WHYS
2nd Place: WHWC
3rd Place: The Carp

Usually, traditional radio ratings ­– the stats that approximate a station’s number of listeners ­– are only calculated for commercial stations and not for public or community radio. This means it’s often hard for those sorts of stations to really know if many people are listening or not. In the case of this year’s reader poll, it would suggest that people in fact are. Coming in on top is WHYS (96.3 FM), Eau Claire’s low-power community-operated radio station with a wide variety of programming hosted by people just like you. Second place was WHWC (88.3 FM), part of the network of Wisconsin Public Radio. And third place went to a locally active commercial station, WDRK (99.9 FM), The Carp. – Nick Meyer

Secret Selection: An interesting note was the strong appearance of WIEC (102.7 FM), the eclectic “secret station” that has operated for quite a while now, legally, but mostly under the radar.