Maintaining Listener Loyalty

1. Be consistent.  Unfamiliarity is almost always a negative.  Surround it with the familiar, so it appears as a pleasant surprise, an expected part of the overall presentation.
2. Be the soundtrack of your listener’s life.
3. It’s a 140 character, 17 second, society.  Be brief.  Respect the listener’s time.
4. Be a companion and friend, never an announcer.  Avoid phrase patterns and verbal crutches.
5. Cluster music into long sets.  Control commercial content. 
6. Hopefully, you can play fewer commercials than your direct competition.  If not, your only winning option is longer stopsets and fewer of them, placed equally on both sides of quarter hours, equidistant from each other in the hour if you’re being measured by Nielsen PPM methodology.  If it’s BBM PPM, the station with the strongest content and the least minutes of potential tune outs wins.  If it’s diaries that make up your ratings, place commercial breaks so that you hold your listener for 35 minutes, equalling four “quarter hours.”  If it’s a phone survey, top of kindness wins.  Use telephone in your contesting and have the biggest, best prizes and promotions.
7. Two five unit breaks per hour is ideal.
8. Count units, not minutes.  From the listener’s point of view, intros, outros, :30s, :60s, and even “mentions” are all commercials.
9. Play only hits.  Never add a song until you believe it’s going to be a hit.
10. Play “clutter busters” once every quarter with your staff.  Make a list of the least popular bits, benchmarks and programs you air from the talent’s perspective and then test them with listeners in an online survey or focus groups.  Drop unpopular ones.
11. Promote, but never HYPE.  Do what you say and offer proof.

Listing these things is easy.  DOING them is hard.  Odds are, your owner or manager will expect you to win loyalty while stinting on some of them.

That's why we believe you need a consultant.  You can sometimes win while cutting a few of these corners, but if you need to constantly and predictably do so.

There's only one way to do that.

To constantly dominate a market position, be uncompromising when it comes to all listener loyalty drivers.

The Canary Has A Name

The canary in radio ratings' coal mine's name is Sean Hannity.

In a cover story interview this week, the syndicated talker tells Radio Ink "one of the problems with radio in general, and this impacts all formats, is that in the last 10 years, our lives, in terms of technology, have changed dramatically. Radio needs to wake up to this fact. It’s the single biggest threat to the radio business today — that is, the measurement system is flawed in a dramatic way."

Hannity believes he has millions of digital listeners he is not able to get credit for.  "For example, in New York, if you’re listening to The Sean Hannity Radio Show on the WOR website, even if you have a Portable People Meter, I can’t get credit for that. We know that WABC, at times, had well over 1.4 million people listening online. If we can’t get credit for that, then all the data that’s being put out there is just inaccurate. Then you add to that those people who listen to me on satellite. That’s unmeasured. If people listen on my website, that’s not measured. I’m a big proponent of iHeart-Radio, but that’s also unmeasured. What we have is a situation where, especially in big cities, it’s almost impossible to get an AM signal, and for the people listening to my show, and they are, there is no way that we can get credit."  Hannity says. he knows for a fact he has millions of online listeners. "I have never seen it below a couple of million people. Ever. This is not a small issue. This is a massive issue."

Sean was an early believer and user of PPM and spoke in 2007 to the annual consultants' fly-in about how he was using the Media Monitors and custom audience flow reports tracking of his show to hone content, so I can testify that he's an extremelty knowledgeable voice on the subject who has been digging deep into PPM data from the beginning.

Also, the responses to his views on Radio Ink's website are generally chirping in agreement:

The current reporting method stations are using for on-line listening is difficult to work with or believe at best. This problem requires a good solution from Nielsen...now.
- Dick Kalt

I say again -- add PPM encoder to your internet streams. This is not shocking revelation.  Parsing streaming server logs is also a trivial matter, albeit you don't get the same demographic data as PPM.
- Joe Cassara

This is an "Elephant in the room" issue for radio. What exactly is being done about it? Nothing yet.
- Iconoclast

For the first time in my life, Hannity and I agree on something. To the earlier comment, server logs are flawed too and subject to manipulation. - Fred Lundgren

I have written about this shortcoming, citing what Canada's BBM is doing for genuine cross-media measurement.  When ARB was radio and Nielsen was TV, using server logs was the only option open to Arbitron.

Now that Nielsen measures both TV and radio with PPM, they can do much better than 6%, as Sean Hannity clearly understands.

You Go First

Sean Ross (Why The Audience Now Wants Shorter Breaks) initiated not just a great conversation last week but the savvy and experienced folks adding comments since that time simply can't be ignored!

However, I'm not yet convinced.

Back when John Hayes ran Corus and Canada was just starting with PPM, with the help of the brilliant Bob Michaels (I STILL miss him so much - a smart researcher and a wonderful communicator!), all Corus stations were mandated to do six two minute breaks and promote that they go back to the music faster than anyone else.

Finally, after more than a year of disappointing ratings all of the Corus music stations went to two six minute breaks per hour and the ratings improved almost immediately across the board.

In Canada, BBM doesn't use "five minutes equals a quarter hour" as Nielsen Audio does, so it's absolutely a "most minutes" wins game and all of the Canadian country stations we work with are doing exceedingly well right now sticking with the "hour glass" or "bow tie" approach, so I'm welcoming anyone else who wants to take the Edison Researcher's advice and "go first."

My sense is that this is a case of perception vs actual habits.

TV commercials are all run at the same times so that viewers then are forced to choose their favorite shows based on the content not the commercial load and I believe that the same is true with radio when the measurement is PPM.

The major consolidated US group owners have shown me by their actions in PPM that it's possible for one station to play at least one minute more commercial time than a direct competitor and still win by carefully placing their clusters to maximize the time measured by the PPM, which like your cell phone "knows what time it is," so a few seconds can be the same as a minute depending where a tune-in or tune-out happens.  Thanks to Nielsen Audio's editing rules, that minute in the right place can be credited as a full quarter hour (or also cost you one if it's improperly placed).

Perception still drives expectations, which does make listeners go to one station "first" over another, but when at that station "time matters" much more than perceptions, I maintain.  Great content drives usage in the moment much more than the image that if I am patient I'll hear more of what I want in the long term.

Each "stop" causes a huge loss in the "switcher" audience and the more times per hour that happens the stronger that image of "it's worth waiting for something terrific" must be, my current experience still indicates.

How about you?  Ready to go first?

Do Old Basics Still Work?

Legendary programmer/radio research pioneer Todd Wallace recently wrote this article for the Australian trade-publication RadioToday (Aussie's still are dealing with only diary measurement). Given last week's thread I opened, I am taking the liberty of posting it here in hopes it generates even more reaction):

One of the questions I get asked most often these days deals with whether the old “tried and true” radio basics, as they apply to Breakfast Shows, are still valid.

Here in North America, the introduction of PPM ratings technology (Portable People Meter measurement by Nielsen and BBM) has caused many programmers to question or re-think their stance on these basic programming truths.

What should be considered first and foremost are two facts: 

 1)  A strong breakfast show or personality is one of the most-mentioned reasons listeners still cite, even today, for why they like listening to, or feel compelled to listen to, a radio station first thing in the morning, My all-time favorite radio adage, “win breakfast, win the war” still stands. When Mulray joined Triple M numbers spiked, when Wayne “The Poo” Roberts joined 4BC the station immediately began making boatloads of cash, and recently then Kyle and Jackie O switched stations, the new world order of Sydney radio ratings instantly changed. 

2)  Nearly all truly great radio stations have defining breakfast shows.

A strong (as they say down under) "brekky" show..

• Can serve as a cume magnet, drawing listeners from other stations all over the dial (and even from other media)  
• Can provide an effective promotional vehicle which helps recycle listeners into other dayparts. 
• Can be the “center stage” for addressing community needs with outstanding, imaginative public service projects. 
• Can serve as an effective platform for sales promotions (in a way that couldn’t be supported in other music-driven dayparts) 
• Can be utilized to “camouflage” increased commercial inventory before 9am so it doesn’t have to run in other dayparts where it may be more noticeable.  

Some programmers seem to think PPM means everything has changed. But the more you examine what really drives breakfast listening, the more you see the validity of maintaining a strong basics discipline.

My friend and colleague Country Consultant Jaye Albright put it this way: “Listeners still perceive and make use of radio in the same ways they always have. It’s the measurement techniques and the sample that changed, requiring new usage tactics and perceptual- driven strategies”.

With that in mind, let us proceed to look at the bigger brekky basics and update some thinking to today.

Station Identification. You can be the funniest and/or most outrageous jock in the world, but it you don’t get proper credit in a Nielsen ratings diary, your numbers will never match your full potential. Even when being measured by PPM, regular reminders of who you are (call letters or brand name identifier) and what your address is (frequency) and what you’re famous for (“the new Country leader”) helps to remind a panelist of where and why they should return again every morning. That hasn’t changed.

Timechex. Breakfast listeners still largely listen the way they always have during their multi-tasked morning routine full of activities. Regular time-checks every 3 or 4 minutes help a listener maintain his/her body-clock without having to make a conscious effort to look at a clock or watch. (“I know when The Dirty Joke Of The Day comes on, I need to be out the door”) A time-check can also a useful punctuator or seque-tool in the middle of live content. Double-time, digital followed by analog time (“6:43, that’s 17 before 7”) reinforces the fact you are providing the time-check. (Many listeners may not notice you’ve given the time if you only give single-time.) That hasn’t changed.

Weather. Listeners still want to know what elements they’ll be facing on their way to work/school/etc. You still can’t give weather often enough in the morning (as long as it’s concise). Current temp, sky- weather, and a capsule forecast of the next extreme high several times an hour.
That hasn’t changed.

Humor. Even on a so-called “serious” station, something “magic” happens when you don’t take yourself so seriously. Most listeners still like hearing something that amuses them. Remember to keep humor positive (not degrading or poking fun at someone else’s expense). Funny is still funny. Most people like to laugh when they wake up. That hasn’t changed.

Features. Many listeners are feature-junkies, especially bedrock breakfast benchmarks. An effective feature can take what might ordinarily be just a throw-away line, joke, or concept, and give it new life in a way that cannot be ignored. Programmed at the same time every morning as a benchmark bit can generate a tune-in cuming-pattern just for a feature, which will have much longer time-spent-listening (diary) or time-spent-exposed (metered) benefits. Too often, PD’s or jocks tend to stop doing a feature long before its real “use by” date and sometimes end up throwing the baby out with the bathwater. As ancient as they may be to PD’s and jocks trying to stay on the cutting edge, “old” features like “the Mystery Oldie” or “the Joke Of The Day” or “Battle Of The Sexes” trivia can still be very entertaining to the average listener. That hasn’t changed.

Essential Information. When a listener wakes up, they want to know if the world is still there. And they expect an efficient summary of news they need to know. Enough of a story-count (of real news, not fluff) to bring them “up to date” is sufficient. (I suggest 6 quickies consisting of a clever grabber- headline and an explanatory follow-up sentence,) Plus traffic, weather, and sports-shorts. That hasn’t changed.

Topicality. What is today’s big local event? The thing that everyone will be talking about at work. It may not necessarily be “local” but it’s what locals are or will be buzzing about today. And keep it going all morning. Mentioning it once at 6:18 is not enough. You’ll have a new audience again by 6:55, and at 7:30, and at 8:15. That hasn’t changed

Music The amount of music that should be programmed is largely dependant on how much truly great content is regularly prepared every morning. Some personalities or ensemble teams have so much excellent subject matter that listeners actually prefer to hear them rather than a song. But most shows benefit from scheduling music at least once or twice each quarter-hour as part of the breakfast entertainment mix. I caution clients against programming music-sweeps in a breakfast show. In my experience, most listeners don’t wake up clamoring sweeps, they’d rather hear a great bit or feature after a song plays, and a great song after great spoken or produce content has played. That hasn’t changed.

So what HAS changed?

One way that the application of PPM measurement has changed breakfast shows in the States is that it has provided tangible proof to personalities and teams willing to dive deep into the numbers that brevity is indeed the soul of wit. Even that is an old concept that is still valid, even more valid, today!

Shows that have learned to get to the point fast and streamline their schticke have seen their numbers increase – often significantly – often very quickly. There was a time that some of those personalities just “started talking until they could finally think of something to say”. Now they’ve learned how to focus their content and improve their methods of show prep, often by hiring effective talent coaches.

The good news is that jocks who have educated themselves about what listeners will tolerate, minute- by-minute, find that when what used to be a 4-or-5-minute loosey-goosey rambling is transformed into a tight 2-minute efficient bit with a great payoff, there is a definite and immediate ratings benefit.

Bottom-line: You can never go wrong by making words work. And by getting morning personalities in the habit of scrutinizing every single bit and feature of their show.

    -- Todd Wallace (602-866-TODD), Phoenix, AZ

When It Comes To Cross Media Usage, Keep Your Eyes On Canada

Since BBM Canada makes use of the PPM to measure both major market TV and radio usage, Canada's media ratings company is in an excellent position to compare apples to apples in all forms of encoded audio and video usage.

BBM has three initiatives underway:

• BBM started a test last August to determine whether or not the PPM radio meter panel can support Internet streaming measurement (i.e., separating Internet streaming from live broadcast currently reported together) and to look into the volume of Internet streaming usage by radio broadcaster audiences.
  
  Twenty-two Toronto member stations started participating in a test late last summer, separately encoding their online radio stream.  Now, 25 Toronto radio stations are encoding both their terrestrial and streaming programming.
  
  Then, in November eighteen stations in Vancouver Central (Metro) Area were added to the test and as of December, sixteen stations have participated in Montreal Central (Franco and Anglo). 
  
  Individual station-level data have been presented to all participating broadcasters in each market by BBM, but the data is not yet currency for public release.
  
  However, the early headline is quite promising, boding well for the future.
  
  The combination of over the air PPM usage average minute audience and encoded streaming appears to increase radio's total week 12+ audience by about 3%.  OF course, there is great variability in online streaming between stations.
  
  BBM told its member stations this week that overall the highest percentage of online listening occurs during the workday at 5%.
  
  
• The second initiative is to report radio tuning and television viewing in a single database. 
  
  BBM’s Cross Media Database was tested in the past few months, and will be released in May with data back to September 2013.  Quarterly releases will occur until August, and then Cross Media will be released monthly.
  
  Cross Media Data is not currency as it is based on Central Areas, and Television currency is based on Extended Markets, but this single source data should have many other uses.  Data will be at the respondent level so users will have a lot of flexibility looking at tuning between radio and television from the same sample.
  
  
• The third initiative, Non Linear Measurement, is in a proof of concept test.  This is designed to report media that is accessed from servers.  The initial test is for Video on Demand, but this technology to extend PPM to user-controlled access will have many other uses in radio and television.   Television broadcasters have installed the software based encoders and will insert the PPM codes as the material is loaded to their servers.  Data should be available for industry assessment mid-2014.  BBM is the only measurement organization able to measure Non Linear consumption in its panel.  BBM already reports all live streaming, so addition of non-linear will give users a full view of consumption of their programming regardless of the platform. 

These initiatives extend BBM measurement across media, and much deeper into media now reported.  It should be clear in a few months how these datasets can be used.

Organizations south of the 49th parallel working in this same area have a lot to learn from our Canadian friends right now.

$1.3 Billion Is A Lot Of Money

With the approval of Nielsen's takeover of Arbitron, it's dubious that anyone thinks that broadcaster costs are going down anytime soon.

So, since it's fait accompli, let's at least inventory what I hope we all get for the money.

First, thanks to Wired's Tom Valderbilt, some history:

In the years after its founding in Chicago in 1923, the A.C. Nielsen Company thrived, thanks to a commitment to math and technology. While its competitors called random households and asked them what they happened to be listening to on the radio at that moment, Nielsen developed more sophisticated sampling methods. Rather than rely solely on self-reporting, Nielsen employed a device called the Audimeter that used photographic tape to automatically record listening activity. When television arrived, Nielsen used similar meters for viewing—although they were supplemented with paper diaries. But by the late 1950s, Nielsen sat comfortably atop the media-ratings industry. It had few competitors, and since television habits remained static, it had little reason to keep innovating.

Under the terms of the FTC’s approval, as Variety Digital Editor Todd Spangler reports Nielsen must continue to support Project Blueprint, the cross-platform project measuring TV, radio, PC, mobile and tablet engagement that ESPN has been working on with Arbitron and comScore, so perhaps Nielsen CEO David Calhoun's statement (“We are looking forward to providing all of the benefits of the combined company to our new clients in the radio industry and their advertisers, driving incremental value for them as well as our shareholders.”) means that we will all be getting more for the money, better, more reliable data to reflect a more mobile media world.

• Will Nielsen households increase from 25,000 to 75,000 (the national PPM radio panel) at no additional cost to current subscribers?
• Will the increased sample size permit cross-media usage measurement like BBM Canada has been doing since they implemented PPM in 2009, displacing Nielsen's TV measurement?
• Will sample weighting decrease, increasing reliability?
• Will PPM be extended to all TV markets now measured by Nielsen so that radio in those markets gets PPM data at no additional cost?

Skeptics abound, so all eyes will be on Nielsen, starting, perhaps this week, at AdWeek 2013.

After a late 2008 announcement that 50 Cumulus markets were to be measured by Nielsen and a revelation 18 months later that Cumulus CEO Lou Dickey was pleased with the results, the industry never actually saw that public release of the data which was promised, first in June of that year, then later in August and then ultimately Cumulus did not renew their deal with Neilsen, so you'll pardon me if I am fearful.

In February 2010 at Country Radio Seminar, Clear Channel Senior VP/Research Jess Hanson and I attempted to get representatives of the two ratings giants to "take the gloves off," but it turned into a gentle confrontation as then-CEO of Arbitron, Michael Skarzynski ended up a no-show, replaced by the able fencer Dr. Ed Cohen, but Nielsen Media Research's managing director for North America Lorraine Hadfield was ill-equipped to talk competing methodologies with the experienced researcher and stuck to her talking points, meaning that what was billed as a barn-burner actually turned into a good session to catch a nap, which is probably the way both of them had hoped it would be.

Ultimately, as Wired's Vanderbilt wrote, if I may adapt and paraphrase him a bit: "It all adds up to a potentially thrilling new era for radio, television and new media, one that values shows that spark conversations, not just those that hook us for 30 minutes (for TV and just 11 PPM minutes for radio). The stakes are high: Get it right and great programming will continue to thrive. Get it wrong and both the $70 billion television industry and the $16 billion radio business will be in jeopardy—along with your favorite radio station, personality and TV show."

Hopefully, Neilsen makes the most of their huge investment in the future of all U.S. media ratings by improving the value of what they deliver to clients and media buyers .. and wastes no time in doing so.

The (PPM) Show Must Go On

With Calgary's downtown flooding (which actually happened two weeks ago) still scuttling some "Stampede" events as recently as this week, it's going to be very interesting to see how the disaster affected radio and TV usage when BBM's PPM monthly data comes out for clients only next month.

BBM reported in the midst of the torrent "closely monitoring our panels in Alberta to assess any impact on the ratings data.  At this time, BBM only has overnight preliminary metrics to be relied on for any insights.  Certainly these events will have affected the lives of many individuals on our panels.  At this time we are seeing minor reductions in panelists’ participation.  Both the Calgary EM and the Calgary Central panel are performing within their respective targets."

They have observed in-tab samples on overnight data that represent approximately a 4-8% reduction in comparison to previous weekend levels and state that they are confident that there is no one age/sex demographic underrepresented at this time.

The chart below illustrates the differences observed on performance metrics flood weekend, versus the previous weekend.  Fridays were included in this weekend comparison as the displacing events began.

BBM is currently contacting broadcaster members in the Calgary market to ensure they have captured any disruptions to station encoding during this period since a number of major station studios are downtown.

Watch this space for what you know will be the only good news to come out of this disaster - media heroically covered it non-stop (notwithstanding one talker's rant about it) and listening/viewing levels will again show the impact and power of the old, reliable "reach media" during times of community need and disaster.

Can We Finally Talk About More Consistently Engaging Content?

First, please read Billboard.biz's Ross on Radio column today, Can We Finally Talk About Spotload? by Sean Ross.   Don't read another word here until you fully understand Sean's point.

Under the new thinking, shorter listening stretches became almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. The brief moment in which a top 40’s power rotation could  be 45 minutes has mostly passed. But there’s still an emphasis on instant gratification—e.g., all-news stations with traffic every four minutes, even if it means sending people on their way sooner.  But how many more occasions can you get from listeners if the three places where they might have consumed radio are down to one, in some cases? “At home” is diminished by the competition from morning TV and, increasingly, by the lack of a radio at home. “At work,” the usage that lends itself to long listening stretches, is threatened by other choices that offer even more continuous music and fewer interruptions.

Don't think that just because you read that paragraph it's really now OK to read on.

No.

I want you to click on that link above and read his entire piece, so that you are fully aware that I agree with him as far as he goes but also believe he's totally missing something more obvious and even more important.

To make my point, I want to share this graphic being used in presentations all over Canada on PPM listening lengths by Catherine KellyVice-President/Western Region for BBM.

It's a view of life at breakfast time at Catherine's house.  She undocks her meter, turns on her radio and starts to get the family ready to face their days.

One of her kids is slow to get out of bed, so she has to go up to his room at least twice before he comes down ready to go.  The dog needs a walk.  She's busy and moving all over the house.

In about 45 minutes her PPM listening is broken into four sessions totalling 39 minutes.

The radio stations she's using could stop for commercials whenever they want.  They can tease as enticingly as they desire.  They could cut their commercial loads.  They could hyper-spin her favorite songs, and none of those things will impact the reasons she's leaving the radio and coming back to it.

It's about what she's doing, not about what we are doing.

Here's the deal on the “9-10 Minute” myth of the "average" occasion length, as Kelly explains:

• Much has been made about the 10 minute attention span of radio listeners – apparently brought about by insights from PPM.

• When looking at number of listening events and average session length, it is consistent to see a session length of between 9 and 11 minutes.

• Keep in mind, these numbers are averages – they include people who listen for 30 minutes and people who listen for 3 minutes.

In fact, here's the math:  if you break session length into quantiles of usage, the session for the average "heavy user" is 35 minutes.

Meanwhile, if you calculate the "mode," the most frequently-occurring number in that nine-ten minute average is actually 2:30.  Two and a half minutes.

That's why moving the average is so difficult, not because we play too many bad songs or too many commercials.

Sure, it makes your PPM ratings better if you play the best songs and minimize interruptions for the switching audience, which absolutely changes stations while they are in the car each time anything they don't like comes on, but MScore, AirplayIntel and other PPM-based music research is based on tracking only the "switching" audience, those folks who switch from one station to another.

That's only half of the total audience.

The other half isn't tracked by that approach because their listening goes from "you" to "off" and from "off" to "you."

Those are your most loyal listeners and yet the PPM-based music research doesn't measure their usage.

Rather than focusing so much on eliminating reasons why people change stations, it's just as important to figure out what things you do bring those people back and do those things more often.

I Wonder What Cluster This Guy Belongs To?

Earlier this week, BBM Canada announced implementation of geodemographic classification of its PPM households using an aggregated version of the PRIZM consumer segmentation system from Environics Analytics. 

These categories, which are based on the characteristics of residents living in each individual geographic area, use geodemographics and psychographics to provide insights into the behaviour of Canadian consumers.

The system classifies all PPM households into one of 14 segments based on the location of each PPM household.  The classification of households will be reported as a demographic category through currently available respondent-level data analysis software and will be accessible to all BBM Canada members that subscribe to the television or radio PPM service.  

These demographic classifications were introduced into the overnight TV data this week (starting 3/11).  For radio, the classifications will be added effective with the April 4, 2013 data release. 

Right now, country radio seems to be doing very well in PPM measurement after a rocky start in many markets, so I suppose there will be some who say "don't TOUCH my sample," but as Arbitron continues to weight its sample by ten factors, this addition of geo- and psycho- targeting in Canada is going to be fascinating to study very carefully as it rolls out.

Political targeting has demonstrated how people tend to live in "tribes" of folks similar to them geographically and so with PPM's smaller samples who remain in the panel for long periods of time, representing every category possible is a step in the right direction.

It's too early to tell if this move will improve samples in that way, but at least the ability to run analyses based on them sounds promising to me.

Let's watch and see how many of the 66 Prizm lifestyle types the sample is able to accurately represent in proportion to the actual population in each market where this is being implemented.  That will start to indicate just how large each local sample should ideally be, at least, and perhaps even demonstrate why share compression is so typical in PPM numbers.

Thanks to BBM's visionaries for providing us with new numbers to hold their feet to the fire with.

Bring It On

Yesterday, I wrote about possible upsides and downsides for today's broadcast radio in the recent Nielsen "lunch" which featured Arbitron as a main course (Hopes And Fears).

There's one aspect of the deal that doesn't worry me one bit:  Nielsen's intentions in acquiring Arbitron is to begin measuring online radio services like Pandora.

The research has already been done and it's clear that when measured on an apples to apples basis, both streaming of terrestrial and also over the air broadcast stand to gain.

The fact is that traditional "radio" (I can't wait to universally adopt the term 'audio' advertising) currently is greatly undervalued.

It's been happening in the real world for three years now in Canada with BBM using PPM to measure radio and television usage across the same panel.  It's possible to literally follow which ad on one affects the other and of course how a combination of both broadcast media can impact branding, product adoption and make cash registers ring.

James Cridland is a British radio futurologist and has become expert in the real world as well, consulting, writing and speaking about what happens when radio and new platforms collide.

He was a on air talent at local stations, digital media director at Virgin Radio in the UK (now Absolute Radio) and helped the BBC to develop the iPlayer. Cridland operates the website Media UK, works with The Radio Academy, is involved in RadioDNS and a co-organizer of the nextrad.io conference.  I love the way he puts it:  "Radio needs one voice." (click to read his recommendations for radio to make the most of their online presence)

An October 2012 EMarketer study on the growth of mobile found that broadcast radio has a 13.2 percent share of time spent wih all media per day, with a 9.3 percent of the U.S. ad share. 

It's a sad statement that our sellers have not been able to justify increasing radio's rates by the 30% the current audience rating shares affirm that we earn.

Perhaps when buyers see radio's online and over the air usage stats on the same page with all media based on the identical sample, we'll finally get the price we deserve.

If Nielsen's vision for Arbitron can help us do that, they are going to find radio managers and owners asking them "what are you waiting for?  How soon can we start?"

Hopes And Fears

Well, now we know why Arbitron's Project Leapfrog hasn't hopped out of the development stage in 2012 in spite of lots of hype about it in 2011.

With this morning's news that Nielsen is buying Arbitron the phrase "this changes everything" leaps to mind.

I've blogged in the past about the precarious position of being a ratings company with revenues and EBITDA increasing faster than the underlying business which supports it.

The stronger projected growth of television and multi-new-media put the TV ratings giant in a better deal-making position and certainly provides Arbitron stockholders with a very convenient, timely, profitable exit strategy.

Hopes

It has seemed to me for some time that Nielsen had to do something to recapture market share and move away from expensive surveys toward more automated ways of collecting usage data because of Rentrak. 

FYI:  Rentrak CEO is Bill Livek, former head of Birch and his compatriot, Bill Engel, is on the board of the emerging company which takes set top box data from AT&T U-Verse cable and at least one other multichannel provider, also known as return path data, and mix that with other information to create ratings. 

Large samples in some DMAs, next to nothing in others, but estimates everywhere. 

An Arbitron insider recently confided in me:  "It's an interesting approach and due to the much lower cost, it's finding favor with a number of TV stations that are tired of paying for Nielsen."

If I am right about this, perhaps they're planning to do as BBM has been able to do in Canada and utilize PPM to measure all media. 

If so, it could bring down rates for all current subscribers and greatly increase sample sizes by being able to pick up new media clients by showing actual usage data across all media platforms with an apples-to-apples panel sample based on real usage.

PPM could be used in place of the antiquated diary methodology with its seemingly intractable cooperation and response rate difficulties (which appears to get worse survey after survey) in every size market where Nielsen now measures TV.

Radio does not have a comparable system to Rentrak (unless you want to count those strange systems like Mobiltrak from a few years ago that pick up the IF from the radios). 

We will continue to rely on surveys for some time, so the optimist in me hopes that our new ratings supplier will always continue to work as Arbitron generally has - to improve the system - while once the deal is done making it more cost-effective for clients, not further increasing rates in the ways Arbitron has done.

Fears

There are some wonderful researchers toiling at Arbitron who have been comparatively transparent, open about their problems delivering reliable estimates amidst a swift-changing media and population landscape. 

Nielsen's huge international size makes the company more bureaucratic and "corporate" in their messaging to their clients.

As noted above, TV owners seem to dislike giving their money to Nielsen even more than radio companies do with ARB. 

They engage in "big business doubletalk."

Nielsen announced a "doubling" of their sample last summer.  They actually announced an effective doubling of the sample (their italics from the client notice) which can be done statistically. 

Nearly everyone in the trade media picked up on the doubling without using or in other cases questioning the word effective. 

Now that they are our new dancing partner, we'd be wise to look more closely into this.

Nielsen changed the way they estimate language dominance in highly-ethnic markets and the English-dominant went up quite a bit versus Spanish dominant.  A one-time change but one that may have a bigger than expected effect on the estimates if they extend this policy to radio samples in the future too.

Arbitron's profitability and growing revenues, while vexing to an old medium whose revenues have been flat has meant that our longtime "frienenemy" has had the financial strength to invest in research innovations and new products like PPM and Project Leapfrog.

Nielsen is a company with much greater pressures on their bottom line. 

Are they buying ARB for $1.26 billion to improve the media rating business? 

Or, to simply push their debt farther into the future?

We're all about to find out.

Country Is Hot

Two weeks ago, I shared an advance look at Arbitron's Radio Today 2012.

• Arbitron Country Radio 2012, State By State
• Listening and Lifestyle Profiles of American Radio
• Country's National Audience Composition
• Country Radio Today - 2012

And, now, all of BBM's PPM and diary market data from Fall 2012 is out in Canada too and - though the country format is not either the country's most-programmed format nor #1 in audience shares as it is in the USA, there's still cause for celebration, at #3 12+ and #5 25-54, up from both the large-markets only Spring survey and also the Fall, which includes the smaller markets as well.

Look out, AC and Hot AC, we're gaining on you!

It's Bad Enough That They Had A Fire

BBM Canada distributed a notice today, reporting on the PPM monthly data for Corus' CHQR/CFGQ-FM/CKRY-FM, Calgary, titled "Encoding Issue:"

As a result of a fire at the station, the signals for CHQR, CFGQ-FM and CKRY-FM were unencoded on July 11, 2012 for a period of approximately 28 hours.  The approximate start and end times of the incident are detailed in the PPM Technical Incident Report which is available on BBM’s secure website.

It's one thing to report the news.  It's quite another to BE the news.

Fortunately, the week 40-52 BBM survey is 13 weeks long, running from May 28 through August 26, releasing on September 6.

You have to know that today's Calgary monthly PPM release had to make some local Corus people's hair catch on fire and anyone who's measured by PPM these days had to feel some sympathy pains.

Let's hope that the final quarterly update gets back to normal for 'em.

Meanwhile, make a note:  in addition to a generator, plus all of the standby transmission and audio chain equipment it takes to have as a backup to be ready for anything, don't forget that backup encoder too (or when you go off your main audio chain, move your encoder as fast as possible to the redundant system).

At a time when more folks are turning to you for information, don't neglect to work as well to have that usage accurately measured.

The Lowest Week Of 2011 For Radio Usage

Every year BBM/Canada publishes a Radio Data Book which provides an overview of national, provincial and local radio tuning based on the latest fall radio survey and the previous four fall surveys.

This reference book provides a picture of radio tuning habits, both during the most recent calendar year and over the past five years.

The new one came out last week and "week 18" of 2011 was the lowest week of the year.

What happened during that week, which I originally thought was April 22-30?  Good Friday, followed by Easter Sunday and Easter Monday, but an anonymous commenter below (says) IS the Christmas and New Year's Holidays (see my reply, below too).

A great reminder about PPM ratings:  what THEY were doing trumps everything WE were doing.

"Presumptions Are Holding Us Back"

Catherine Kelly, VP/Western Region for BBM Canada made that statement recently during a day-long session with the Lower Mainland media sales and buying community which was laden with thought-provoking trends and stats.

"One of the largest values with PPM data, yet largely unexplored, is the ability to really get to know your audience and how people use your media. In Radio, we’re still dealing with dayparts that were defined by a methodology designed to measure it…rather than using our new methodology to help us design better stations, campaigns and advertising.

"It is unrealistic to look at old behaviour models and expect that they will continue to apply. 18-24 is the one demo that BBM receives the most questions and concerns about – whether the market or station is measured by diary or PPM. Every research company has issues with A18-24.

"PPM has these:

• Docking – I’m out late and I don’t dock til’ tomorrow
• Females – I couldn’t find a way to wear it with my dress
• CONTACT!!!! – reaching these people is IMPOSSIBLE
• And of course…..“Uhm…I (lost it, dropped it in the toilet/pool/shower/lake, had it but can’t find it, forgot it, left it in my friends car…..)”

"This is Reality…

"The 18-24 year olds THEMSELVES drive variability in audience numbers. They go in and out of the sample quicker and more often than older more ‘stable’ panelists.

"During these years, an 18-24 can experience one or more of these, perhaps several times, all within a year:

• Leave to go to school
• Then come back to parents house for summer
• Leave again
• Get a job, quit a job
• Buy a car, write off a car, etc.

"Nevermind what they can do over the course of 7 years..

"It is often assumed that radio listening and television viewing is a daily habit with slight variability over time. However, when you look at minute, hourly, daily, weekly and monthly data for 18-24 year olds, its clear that variability is the norm for this age group.

"Other factors that contribute: Co-Listening/Co-Viewing. Don’t forget that PPM captures ‘exposure’ and that means there are instances of co-listening or viewing, that are going to occur.

"This is particularly true during ‘holiday’ periods where the likelihood of an A18-24 being in a co-viewing/listening environment increases.

"Market events affect 18-24 year olds and drive variability in audience numbers. (psst..this is true of all demos!)

"Consider the following, especially when examining this group:

• What time of year is it?
• Did this happen last year?
• What could be happening in their lives?
• Market?
• Other media?"


Some folks will say that it must be "be nice to a ratings company day" at Breakfast Blog as I recap this, since I more tend more often to tweek our associates in the media research business given my innate and deeply ingrained sympathies with our programmers, talent and sellers.

However, anyone who shares an abode with an 18-24, a teen or a 25-34 knows that what she's telling us - like it or not - has considerable inconvenient truth in it.

It's time to learn new selling strategies.

Your Cume Needs To Be 30% Higher

Coleman compared a full year of audience data on 13 "High Performance Stations" -- so designated because their Adults 18-49 audience shares were significantly larger than the shares of competing stations -- to 68 other stations in Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver using InfoSys+ radio software from BBM Analytics.

Among other findings, this comparison revealed that:

• The average Daily Cume Rating of the High Performance Stations was 130% higher than the average for the non-High Performance Stations
• High Performance Stations achieved slightly higher Time Spent Listening levels, primarily because they generate an average of 5.6 listening sessions per day, 15% more than the 4.9 average number of daily listening sessions generated by non-High Performance Stations
• At 69.9%, the proportion of listening High Performance Stations generate out-of-home is higher than the 62.9% of listening generated out-of-home by non-High Performance stations

"Our findings are similar to those we uncovered in a similar analysis of American PPM data in 2009" said Coleman Insights VP Doug Hyde, who authored the study. "They support the idea that those radio stations that are well-known, have clearly-defined positions and have brand attributes that listeners want to affiliate with are the most likely to perform well under PPM measurement."

I find it sadly ironic that BBM Analytics' blog still includes a link to a very nice concept "Creating Passionate Users" since the very radio formats with the most passionate users are the ones which tend to do worst in PPM measurement due to the too-small sample sizes where the only number they seem to be able to track reliably is 6+ cume. You'd think that the ratings firms who do the measurement would understand that by now, but it seems that they do not. (3/26: be sure to read the comments, where I am called to task for stretching a blog link into a point at least one step too far and I apologize to BBM for it, then try to explain why I am so worried about this issue)

Yes, at a time when media fragmentation is the megatrend, it would be very nice if radio's audience measurement system wasn't crushing radio stations with small, but loyal and reponsive audiences, but that's simply not the way it is. Listeners look to radio for more diversity and variety now and yet PPM's tiny (compared to what would be ideal) panel samples reward just the opposite.

Forget about "passionate users" until PPM samples double or triple. Until then, it's all about cume, cume, cume.

Take Aspirin Before Reading

There's a strong possibility that this is going to hurt your head.

Back in the Diary Days our fight was for bigger Average Quarter Hours. Now, on Planet PPM, technology has completely changed how BBM and ARB measure tuning.

Thanks to the always inquisitive PD of JRfm-The Peak/Vancouver Gord Eno, A&O recently was conveyed an excellent explanation from BBM on the technology of the PPM device:

"We now measure everything in fifteen second segments. Yes, seconds. It takes keeping a listener fifteen seconds for us to be in the game. If we win three out of the four fifteen second segments we win that minute. If we get two out of four, the station that wins the first fifteen seconds wins the minute."

Yikes, talk about micromanaging our content!

If you've read much that I have blogged here, I bet you've already learned you have to grab them in the first seven seconds.

Now, add to that. You must also hold onto them for at least three 15 second periods inside every minute.

Technically, you need the last best "code" in the 15 seconds to be ascribed the first 15 seconds.

That last best code could come in the first second or the 15th second. If you're not familiar with code qualities and what this does to the assignment of the 15 seconds to the last best code, contact your BBM or ARB rep who can lessen your need for aspirin as you contemplate these technical realities.

First, of course, if we donʼt keep them for the first fifteen seconds weʼre not even in the game.

Really, you only need to have the last best code in each 15 seconds, they don’t have to have stayed for the full 30.

But, it takes three 15 minute assignments of the last best code to outright “win” the full 60 seconds – and those three 15 second assignments don’t have to be consecutive, for example: first 15, station CAAA has last best code, Second 15, station CBBB has last best code, Third 15, station CAAA has last best code, and Fourth 15, station CAAA has last best code – minute goes to station CAAA.

Plus, we need them to stay for thirty seconds just to be in a tie. But it takes forty five seconds to win that minute. Then the battle begins all over again for the next minute.

Most minutes wins.

Eno joked with the BBM representative who offered the insights that the battlefield has moved from quarter hours to quarter minutes.

The BBM rep's response was that things hadn’t really changed, and the focus as always should be on making better radio, because better radio gets better numbers.

Agreed, but knowing the mechanics of PPM helps us understand the ʻscienceʼ and how/when the radio consumerʼs impatience affects measurement.

Another revelation: the PPM code is not a constant stream.

Because the code likes to hide in the content the code stream is variable. When there is music, the code flows along nicely. When there are gaps, such as spoken word, the code will embed itself behind any audio whatsoever, music, talk, random ambient noise will even encode.

Now, hereʼs the biggie. If there is four seconds of dead air there is no code.

The solution? Donʼt allow dead air.

Dead air (provided your dead air lasts for more than 15 seconds) means no code.

No code. No measurement. No measurement means weʼre kicked off the fifteen second battlefield and weʼre not even in the fight.

To be totally factual, it only takes the last best code of the 15 second period.

It’s possible for there to be 4 different “last best codes” in each 15 seconds. Your code could come in as the ‘last best code’ on the 5th, 9th, 12th or even the 15th second with audio.

Take two panelists and call me in the morning.

Changes

The difference between last week and this one is huge.

Last week was Summer.

This week is Fall.

This change has nothing to do with the Autumnal Equinox. It is all about lifestyle (and also survey dates!).

Your listeners have been going through more adjustments over the last week than any other time of the year. Vacations are done. School starts. Some folks are carrying PPM meters through it all and others are getting ARB and BBM diaries to measure their use of radio through it all.

And a lot of ʻfirstsʼ for many of your listeners. Those crucial surveys to us are the least of their concerns right now.

For some it is the beginning of all day kindergarten for their kids. First day of grade one, first day of high school, first day of university. It is a stressful time. It also brings a sense of relief. It also creates lifelong memories.

Relating to your listeners experiences will help make you memorable.

Relatable, memorable radio makes your listeners happy. PPM likes it, too.

What you are doing now is being measured for the Fall Book.

(adapted from JRfm/The Peak PD Gord Eno's weekly 'jock memo.')

Another Win For Radio: The Science Of Ad Placement

Radio-Info's Daniel Anstandig reports today that a new study by Casale Media, a digital display ad network, affirms that “reach and frequency” works online the same way it does in radio or TV.
They recently analyzed a random sample of two billion ad impressions from Q1 2011 across their display ad network and found that online ads are most effective when they are placed in the top of the page and first in order.

.. which reminded me of a BBM/Canada presentation earlier this year by Alex Petrilli from TiVO who gave some results from their StopWatch research which measures second by second viewing of the US PVR audience.

This has shown the importance of the 1^st in pod position in terms of retaining the audience during a commercial "break."

Other strategies have proved successful in preventing the audience from hitting the fast forward button, particularly “promercials” such as the recent campaign from American Express using the cast from Glee.
This brought to mind the PPM research using actual usage data (What Happens When the Spots Come On) from Arbitron, interpreted by Coleman:

The fact that radio's cume is always going up throughout the listening day as PPM proves, means that no matter when your commercial runs on the radio, it's on center stage.

Track This Number, Especially If You're In A PPM Market

The average household size in diary sample markets across both the USA and Canada has trended almost exactly the same as the census average, roughly 2.6 persons per home for a very long time.

Over the five decades I have been studying diary samples, there have been individual weeks during BBM or ARB survey periods when the number of persons per household for the total sample and individual radio stations have wobbled wildly away from that average, but when tracking multiple weekly samples for eight to twelve weeks it almost always trends back up or down to the norm.

Not so in PPM markets, where one very large household who loves (or hates!) your radio station can stay in the sample for 24 months or longer. That small number of high occupant households has the potential to help or harm your audience estimates for several years, giving new importance to fully understanding reliability in statistical terms.

If your station hits new, never before attained in diaries, high numbers in PPM:

1. Celebrate. Enjoy. Savor it. You have a station that some people use a lot and that's great.
2. Track the average number of people per ethnic and non-ethnic household in the total sample and also in your station's panelists week by week.
3. Troll for more homes just like them in your marketing efforts.
4. Educate your owner and manager. Hope that they understand that Newton's laws also apply to stats as well as physical objects. What goes up goes down as well.