Broadcasting Beethoven Piano Sonatas

Several months back I was curious about the frequency of broadcasts of Beethoven's string quartets. I chose 3 of the larger classical music radio stations: New York's WQXR, Seattle's KING and Denver's KVOD, the one I listen to frequently. I also chose these three since I calculated daily their symphony broadcasts as part of my classicalfmradio.org statistics.

Like the Beethoven symphonies, the string quartets were broadcast in a similar pattern -- long quartets broadcast less frequently than short ones. I expected similar results for Beethoven sonatas but I was somewhat surprised. Here is the table of the sonatas, their durations and the frequency of broadcasts by the 3 stations:

Beethoven Piano Sonata                     DURATION    KVOD      KING     WQXR   |
=================================================================================|
#01 in F minor, Op 2 No 1                     17:10       2       11       13    |
#02 in A Major, Op 2 No 2                     22:33      14       15        9    |
#03 in C Major, Op 2 No 3                     25:17       0       11       12    |
#04 in Eb Major, Op 7                         28:36       7       11        9    |
#05 in C minor, Op 10 No 1                    18:54      10       15       10    |
#06 in F Major, Op 10 No 2                    14:01      28       13       27    |
#07 in D Major, Op 10 No 3                    25:20       5       12        9    |
#08 in C minor Op 13, 'Pathetique'            18:28      70       47       25    |
#09 in E Major, Op 14 No 1                    14:13      41       13       25    |
#10 in G Major, Op 14 No 2                    17:00      19       16       24    |
#11 in B Major Op 22                          22:46      16       20        9    |
#12 in A Flat Major, Op 26                    11:43      11        4       14    |
#13 in E Flat Major, Op 27 No 1               15:46      17       12       17    |
#14 in C# minor, Op 27 No 2 'Moonlight'       16:21      88       57       39    |
#15 in D Major, Op 28 'Pastoral'              24:52      54       16       33    |
#16 in G Major, Op 31 No 1                    22:56       8       14        9    |
#17 in D minor, Op 31 No 2 'Tempest'          22:01      33       27       24    |
#18 in G Major, Op 31 No 3                    22:19      11       29       10    |
#19 in G minor, Op 49 No 1                     8:11      17        2       24    |
#20 in G Major, Op 49 No 2                     8:14      51        8       25    |
#21 in C Major, Op 53 'Waldstein'             22:12      53       40       20    | 
#22 in F Major, Op 54                         11:29      27        9       21    |
#23 in F minor Op 57 'Appassionata'           21:47      68       44       26    |
#24 in F# Major, Op 78 'Fur Theresa'           8:23      23        8        0    |
#25 in G Major, Op 79                         10:07      22       10       25    |
#26 in E Flat, Op 81a 'Les Adieux'            16:37      49       35       29    |
#27 in E minor, Op 90                         12:34      17       18       21    |
#28 in A Major, Op 101                        20:41      22       17       17    |
#29 in F Flat Major, Op 106 'HammerKlavier'   42:52      20       25        7    |
#30 in E Major, Op 109                        23:49      29       20       14    |
#31 in A Flat Major, Op 110                   23:13      30       25       21    |
#32 in C minor, Op 111                        29:05      14       22       10    |
=================================================================================|
Average Length of the Beethoven Piano Sonatas 19:22                              |
=================================================================================|
Total Performances of all Beethoven Piano Sonatas       876      626      569    |
Average Performances for all 32 Sonatas                27.4     19.6     17.8    |
=================================================================================|
Number of Broadcast Days by the Stations in Study      1980     1698     1698    |
Average Performances per day                            .44      .36      .34    |
=================================================================================|

I'm not sure what this tells me: a few surprises like KVOD never broadcasting his Sonata #3 in over 5 years and WQXR not broadcasting #24. Come on, even on a bad day, Beethoven was way better than most. It appears that nicknamed sonatas are broadcast more than ones without, but I guess that's not surprising. The real long one, "Hammerklavier" does get played some and you can plan on hearing one of his piano sonatas about every other day or so. Not bad, I guess.