2.3? Or, 5.3?

Arbitron's Hispanic Radio Today report showing that the country format's share of Hispanic listening in PPM is less than half of what it is in diaries shines a fresh spotlight on something pretty scary, even as the radio ratings giant touts its sample improvements in the latest monthly report to clients.

Country listeners have always been very cooperative in participating with the ARB sampling technique. They have always been very loyal to their favorite station and proud to write it down.

As a matter of fact, ARB actually used an analysis called "neural networks" back in the mid-1990’s when they first implemented the DiaryLink computer for client diary reviews in Columbia as a means of looking for common elements in comments written in the back of respondents' diaries that might provide a key as to why people send the books back and others do not.

Neural networks involve pattern recognition and search randomly through all the words people write in the books and count repetitive words or phrases. Based on all of the comments on thousands of diaries, here are the most commonly-used words written in ARB books during the summer of 1994, when they did the first neural networks study on 40,000 diaries which had just been computerized in full, for example:

1. I love Rush.
2. I hate Rush
3. Thank you for the dollar, I enjoyed participating in your survey and giving you my opinions.
4. I love country music.
5. I hate rock.

All of ARB's attempts since that time to get more diaries back from 18-34 and ethnic homes, which for many years have had the lowest response rates (even worse now, due to cell phone only households!), have really been directed at just the opposite kind of people than the ones who wrote those responses.

My theory:

It is possible, as a result, that country listeners are returning just as many diaries as always and maybe even willingly carry meters too, but their impact on the sample may be much less in situations where young males and ethnic (Hispanic, Asian and African-American) homes are having a positive impact.

In short, I believe that the country format has a very 21st Century marketing problem that mirrors the reality of the new America.

If we want to continue to do as well in the coming decade as we have in the past, we are going to have to find a means of reaching and converting young males and minority families.

I hope that the Media Ratings Council continues to study the possibility of setting sample targets for the number of households as well as just the number of diaries/meters and establish geographic proportionality goals based on actual population figures. PPM's multiple weighting factors further act to distort realities in many cases.

The result would be more stable rating estimates.

Hispanic Listening: PPM Isn't As Kind To Country As Diaries Were

Hispanic Radio Today 2010 is just out from Arbitron (click to download the pdf) and it offers a detailed look at the radio listening habits and consumer insight among U.S. Hispanics.

First, let me correct the record now that we have the full results.

Two weeks ago I predicted that country's share of Hispanic listening in the report was going to be down into the two's. That's only partially true, as the diary markets in the national averages rescued us more than just a little bit (click the graphics to enlarge them).

Are we a 2.3? Or a 5.3 share of their listening??

In 2011, let's resolve to understand why the PPM panel seems to under-represent country's ethnic listening, especially from the 2010 census' fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population ... or were Hispanics writing in diaries listening they didn't actually do?

Seems unlikely to me.

Is The Country Format's Share Of Hispanic Listening Shrinking?

Is country radio's share of Hispanic listening in 2010 going to be down to merely a two share? That's what I heard last week at the annual ARB Programming Fly-In.

Even with numerous media alternatives through which consumers can entertain and inform themselves, radio’s overall reach among Hispanic listeners has remained between 94% and 96% ever since Arbitron's annual "Hispanic Radio Today" studies began in Spring 2001.

2010's update is coming soon and I hear that it continues to validate that Hispanics remain the fastest growing population group, America's heaviest radio users (those figures have decreased less than 1% over the last decade).

Among Spanish-dominant Hispanics, radio’s reach in 2008, for example, was 95%, and it was more than 93% with English-dominant Hispanics.

Last year's report showed growth in country radio's share of Hispanic listening to a 2.9, but whispers coming out of ARB hint that the news is not so good (if you want to call less than a three share 'good') for country radio in this year's update.

Whether Spanish-dominant or English-dominant, radio reached at least 91% of Hispanic men in every age group, and attracted more than 91% of Hispanic women in every demographic cell 12-64. Country's reach among that group is in the very low single digits.

In addition to the first-time use of PPM data in this edition, Hispanic Radio Today 2009 highlighted language preference among Hispanic consumers. Arbitron asked Hispanic respondents about the language they prefer to use.

The options are:

•All Spanish
•Mostly Spanish
•Mostly English
•All English

Country radio's tiny share of all Hispanic listening, of course, comes primarily from those last two groups.

Their social values are conservative. They are family-oriented, religious, and most importantly growing at a time when the non-ethnic U.S. population is getting smaller and older as a percentage of the total population as the 2010 census data is showing.

We first "studied" the problem at CRS four years ago. Little has happened to take action on the findings since then.

Country must find a way to welcome more of these folks.

Is It As Simple As Finding A Hispanic Female To Sing A Duet With Tim?

From the Pacific Northwest to Arkansas and Tennessee and all states in between, there's no doubt that the fastest-growing population segment is Hispanic:

Need convincing? Some reading for you:

* Houston: Shades of gray in being black.

* The other Washington: Capitalizing on Quinceaeras, Pasco's rising Hispanic tide

* Chicago: Only 13% of Hispanic population voted in '06

* Tennessee: Economic clout of Hispanics soars

* Minneapolis: Growth at the Fringe

* Arkansas: Study: State Hispanic market booms

* New Jersey: Latino buyers add vitality to market

Americans of Hispanic descent are a huge potential audience for country music -- but no one is yet certain how to tap this expanding market.

There were some other warning signs for country music: 41 percent of those polled said they believed country radio stations aren't interested in appealing to Hispanics. And most Hispanics -- 62 percent --didn't even know if there was a country music station in their area.

A big salute to Country Radio Broadcasters and Exec Dir Ed Salamon for continuing the discussion.

Turn up your computer speakers real loud and take a worthwhile hour to listen to the panel discussion. Kevin King of Cumulus/Nashville represented radio extremely well. Listen especially for his views on both the opportunities and likely problems this initiative may pose for country radio.

Notable for their absence in the audio discussion: reps from Sony-BMG and U-Music. And, I think I know why, don't you? If we were to ask today's country core if they would be open to country radio reaching out to immigrant minorities and welcoming them to their favorite station, they would not be positive on the idea. So, is it best to work around their prejudices? Or, try to change them? Can an attractive young female Hispanic star do it for us? Big thoughts and questions indeed!

If you don't currently subscribe to the CRB Exec Memo, here are the login codes: Name: crbem Password: podcast.

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Billboard's Ken Tucker Hits Reuters With Country/Hispanics CRS Study Preview

And, this morning, the Post picked it up: And what of Nashville's historically lily-white record labels? Might they add non-white artists to diversify their rosters? (well worth a click to read it all!)

"That just isn't the way it works," Warner Bros. Nashville chief Bill Bennett says. "If you find someone with real quality music, you don't care what ethnic background they're from. We have Cowboy Troy and Rick Trevino, but not because they're ethnic. We have them because they make great songs."

WKIS, Miami PD Bob Barnett sees things differently.

"I think the degree of difficulty in marketing a black or Hispanic or Latin artist to country radio may initially be too unfamiliar and too overwhelming for most on Music Row. The labels are more likely to choose the path of least resistance, but there may be an opportunity for a renegade independent label to take that risk. The potential payoff could be huge, but obviously not without great challenge."

PS: Another Post article worth clicking: Douglas Brinkley's review of the very pro-radio book by Marc Fisher (Random House, $27.95) "The Rise of Radio, How an amazingly adaptable medium broadcast new messages to America" in the Sunday, January 28, 2007 edition.