Friday, April 17, 2009

The "Other" Ah-HA In The Research Director's Report

Marc Greenspan, a managing partner of Research Director, Inc., cited the fact that the top four hours of listening occurred in three different dayparts. “Clearly the belief that radio is only a morning drive medium is simply not true.”

The Research Director Inc. PPM audience flow study
which shows radio’s top hours are 3:00-4:00 pm and 4:00-5:00 pm demonstrates that radio's reach story is even better in the afternoon than in the morning.

It also illustrates another key programming metric.

Back when we all studied diary data to gain a time-spend-listening edge over the competition, we acted as if the average listening occasion was six or seven quarter hours and everyone tried to create three or four daily occasions built on habitual tune-in.

Then, having accomplished that, we worked to get one or two more days a week written in diaries at that same listening level.

Now that PPM so clearly demonstrates people really use radio in different ways than conventional wisdom dictated, we know that you build a quarter hour of listening one minute at a time.
Charlie Sislen, President of Research Director, Inc., commented on radio’s strength throughout the day. “The number of hours where AQH listening exceeded ten percent of the population is impressive and shows one of radio’s true strengths. Radio continues to be an entertainment media that has tremendous audience size
throughout the week. In these days of entertainment fragmentation, this is a real plus to any advertiser.”

Get your head around this, for example: "traffic every ten minutes on the tens" might actually not create more than a minute or two of listening in any one quarter hour, thus not even building a single cume (five minutes of listening) for you, let alone a, much more valuable, quarter hour (five minutes inside a quarter hour).

That traffic report may get you lots of regular drive-time tune-in, but you better tease something very compelling right after it that holds the audience more than a minute or two!

2 comments:

Scott Innes said...

My Thoughts on Building Cume: There hasn't been an Artist in a long time that I truly feel would make a person sit in there car and wait 10 min to hear it
after a jock teased it coming up.
 
Until Now...
 
The Miley Cyrus Song "Climb" is Great for Country Radio and Great for Building Cume.
 
I promise you if you tease This song coming up, people will wait to hear it. She's Hot! her Movie is #1 And every Young Fan contolling The Radio in Mom & Dad's car WILL MAKE THEM WAIT TO HEAR THIS SONG!
 
My deal is it's all in the set up......
 
- Scott Innes, Wynk radio Baton Rouge

Facebook Thread said...

Mark Manuel at 7:26am April 17

We get as many local people and stories on our morning show as possible. And then have them swear...to pull in the pre-teens. :)

Denis 'Catfish' Miller at 7:07am April 17
Lots of swearing....seems to pull in the pre-teens. ; ] -

Jason Bailey at 7:31am April 17
You guys have the swearing thing down... but if you really want to do it right get strippers to do it while talking bad about the troops!! Ratings winner!

Steve Ketelaar at 7:31am April 17
I swear that Mark is lying it's all about meeting as many people and shaking their hands hosting their events and repeating their names back on the show the next day and in the future

Denis 'Catfish' Miller at 7:42am April 17
Was this what you were looking for, Jaye? LOL
Its Friday, you cant expect us to be SERIOUS????

Frank N Stein at 7:51am April 17
Frank think multiple distribution points with relative and interactive content