A Willing Buyer, A Willing Seller And A Clever Idea

.. but I have a few concerns before we go too much farther down this road.

Whether Colorado Broadcasters Association President/CEO Justin Sasso or a Nielsen researcher/affiliate rep came up with the concept, it's a brilliant win-win in any case, as 300+ Colorado broadcasters this week at the Doubletree in Grand Junction got a look at some of the latest information from Nielsen on the use of television, radio and other media sources.

Sasso highlighted the value of television and radio as sources that many throughout the state continue to use in receiving their news -- despite of the many newer media platforms developing online.  "We're trying to get people's heads around what's happening, instead of what they're reading in newspapers that these new media sources are taking over, and they're great, but in no way replacing radio and television." - News Channel 5's Jorma Duran

Inside Radio reported yesterday:  "other state associations have used presentations to reinforce the power of broadcasting, these were the first to use custom Nielsen data for a specific state.  Since many broadcasters in the state’s smaller markets aren’t Nielsen subscribers, the CBA commissioned Nielsen to crunch the Colorado numbers and license the data to its members to incorporate into their own presentations for one year."

Regional presentations took place in Ft. Collins, Denver, Colorado Springs and Grand Junction to packed houses in three days, pulling off four regionally customized presentations compiled using Nielsen’s vast database.

The data was licensed from Nielsen, at the CBA’s expense, for one year. CBA members will be able to access the Nielsen data and incorporate pertinent information into their station presentations.

My take, for what it's worth:

It would be wonderful if the 49 other broadcast associations and Nielsen are able to get together to do the same thing regionally in every single state over the coming months to become a fully regional "Audio Today 2015!"

Of course, it would be a nice additional source of revenue for Nielsen, repurposing stats from a new angle that have already been paid for by subscribing radio and TV stations.

For that reason, I hope the price can be kept low and as other state broadcast groups negotiate for them with Nielsen.

I'd encourage the rating firm to use some of that "found money" from these projects to be very transparent about how they manage to merge the very different PPM, condensed market rolling average and very small sample county by county diary data which doesn't come out until the following April, in the year after it was collected.

Hopefully by going to respondent level, Nielsen can give our local clients in small markets all over the country fresh, very reliable regional usage data in as close to real time as possible.

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.

Playing Catch Up

CBS and other major group owners are working with Nielsen Catalina Solutions to demonstrate the power of multi-media usage to help marketers tailor advertising across platforms in the belief that it will ultimately improve radio's revenue shares.

Yesterday, Clear Channel confirmed that it is “far along” in the process of working with measurement partners to define next-generation cross media measurement for audio. The company didn't disclose which researcher it is using, but EVP of insights, research & analytics Radha Subramanyam told Inside Radio the work “will lay the foundation for how the medium is looked at in the 21st century” and provide “a true read of what is going on in the ecosystem.”

It wouldn't be surprising to learn that Cumulus is working with Triton Digital on something similar.

Clear Channel, meantime, says it is “far along” in the process of working with measurement partners to define next-generation cross media measurement for audio. The company hasn’t disclosed its measurement partners but EVP of insights, research & analytics Radha Subramanyam says the work “will lay the foundation for how the medium is looked at in the 21st century” and provide “a true read of what is going on in the ecosystem.” - See more at: http://www.insideradio.com/article.asp?id=2753936&spid=32060#.UvJ44IWyU2Y

As more media buying is done transactionally by computers talking to each other the data coming from new media measurement initiatives means, hopefully, that our sellers will no longer need to overcome old media buyer stereotypes that have meant radio fails to get its fair share of the media usage pie.

Solid data is crucial in this effort and the combined power of on line, at home and away from home/mobile, I'll bet, will support something anyone who engages daily with people who use radio has known for a very long time:  they actively and heavily use audio entertainment while multi-tasking throughout their media day and that improves the return on investment of audio advertising.

Hopefully, it won't be long until these efforts are peer reviewed, coordinated and accredited so that the buying community gets consistent, believable numbers from everyone concerned.

There's too much at stake to get this wrong.