• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Numbers Numbers Numbers, who's on 3rd

Status
Not open for further replies.
X

xmtrland

What a nice fall day in the Puget Sound, well for some.

https://ratings.****************/cgi-bin/rol.exe/arb039

Interesting as always.
 
This book shows the huge holes in the methodology Nielsen employs. When I see how wildly KING FM has moved, it throws cold water on the whole book. Yes I know this is the "beauty pageant 6+" but this is the LARGEST sampling size of any part of the book- it should have the gentlest of moves of ALL the splits. And there is no way that classical KING, with no competition, no fundraising drives, no changes in a very stable format, should go from a 2.6 to a 1.7 in two months. That number should barely wiggle at all, over years much less months.

What this says to me is that there are very few meters out there at any given time. Which means there are VERY few in specific demographics, which makes those numbers even more suspect. All this says to me is that I can be pretty sure that KUOW has more listeners than Hot 103.7, and Hot probably has more listeners than KCIS. Anything tighter than those spreads is statistically suspect.

I have no dog in this hunt, BTW.

Movin' dropped two whole points in two books. Where did those listeners all go? I look at the competitors to 92.5 and they didn't go there; KUBE went up .6, and KISS went up .3, but that is negated by HOT dropping by .5 Did all of these listeners disappear? No, but likely one of their better listeners lost her PPM to a similarly aged KCMS Christian "rocker."

I am sure the technology is fine, but it is useless if you have it in the hands of too few. It puts a high-tech sheen on garbage data.
 
Last edited:
The New Chico said:
This book shows the huge holes in the methodology Nielsen employs. When I see how wildly KING FM has moved, it throws cold water on the whole book. Yes I know this is the "beauty pageant 6+" but this is the LARGEST sampling size of any part of the book- it should have the gentlest of moves of ALL the splits. And there is no way that classical KING, with no competition, no fundraising drives, no changes in a very stable format, should go from a 2.6 to a 1.7 in two months. That number should barely wiggle at all, over years much less months.

What this says to me is that there are very few meters out there at any given time. Which means there are VERY few in specific demographics, which makes those numbers even more suspect. All this says to me is that I can be pretty sure that KUOW has more listeners than Hot 103.7, and Hot probably has more listeners than KCIS. Anything tighter than those spreads is statistically suspect.

I am sure the technology is fine, but it is useless if you have it in the hands of too few. It puts a high-tech sheen on garbage data.
Click to expand...

The daily in-tab goal for the Seattle PPM is about 1,350 meters.

"In-tab" means that the data from the meter is usable. Pretty much that means "the meter had normal range movements as registered by the built-in motion detector".

Here is the math:

The Persons Using Radio 6 AM to Midnight in PPM markets averages around 8. That means that on average, at any given time, 108 meters are actually detecting some radio station. Of course, it is more in the 6 AM to 7 PM dayparts, more like 125.

So, going with the 6 A to 7 P numbers, which is what most users of ratings buy, we have 125 meters at any average given moment. A station with a 5 share is being "heard" by around 6 or 7 meters. A station with a 1 share is being heard by 1 or 2 meters. A station with a 0.5 is being heard some of the time by no meters, and some of the time by one or perhaps 2 meters.

Since advertisers that buy on numbers generally don't buy stations that are rated, we don't worry too much about the station with a 2 share... because that is good for about 18th among commercial stations and, in general, agencies don't buy that deep for any client.

(The exception might be sports, where a 1 share station could be a high 3-share station in 25-54 men, and that might get the buy if that is the agency and client target).

So are wobbles within a range significant? Unless part of a many-book trend, no. Agencies do multi-book averages.

Ratings are a metric used to determine and justify ad rates. Radio only pays for as much sample as is needed for the metric to be accepted by ad agencies and large, transactional, local accounts. The cost is already very high, and adding sample will not change sales and will not bring more money into the market.

There is no hole in the methodology. There is simply not enough sample for the degree of precision you are looking for in your analysis and that is because station owners don't want... or need... to pay for more.
 
Thank you David. That is quite more of an education than I deserved!

And if it is good enough for the Chevy dealers in town and for the ad buyer for GEICO, then I guess it is good enough for me. But these "wiggles" are a margin of error of over 20%. Sometimes much more. I used KING as a baseline because if any station in this market should not wiggle at all, it would be KING. A small sample size IS a hole in methodology, but one that has been deemed by the people paying for the data to be acceptable from a C/B analysis. And those are the only people who count, for good reason.

But seeing what I see for KING, I have to laugh when anyone on this board says that a station climbing by.2 is "trending upwards." Or a half point drop means it is time for a format change. And when I see apparently many thousands of Puget Sound Urban/CHR listeners "disappear" for a few months, only to magically re-appear some months later, it belies rationality. That smacks of (albeit probably accidentally) replacement of one format dominant meter holder with another. PD loses enough meters and he finds himself working afternoons in Topeka.

Seattle suddenly got a lot more Christian and a lot less Urban. Will be interesting to see if there was a mass conversion or just a big MOE. Betting on the latter.
 
Wow--The Sound beat WARM! 'Relaxing favorites at work,' works! Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha....take that 106.9 and your Hot AC-sounding crap. I'll take 94.1 any day if I have to travel to the green side of the Cascades. (And I don't think they were doing this well under KMPS either, weren't they in the 3's?)
KUOW and KIRO-97.3 still the ones to beat, thanks to the never-ending news cycle of Trump, Kavanaugh, elections, more Trump. Big jump for Spirit 105.3 (1 point), but 96.5 is down 1/2 a point. And both 100.7 and 98.9 dropped some in the PPM.
 
TheBigA said:
KMPS peaked at a 4.3 exactly one year ago, Neither country station has reached that height since.
Click to expand...

KMPS's highest overall ever was a 6 point something in the '90s or 2000s (they were #1 in a few books.)

Like I said, if KSWD goes Christmas with KRWM, it's going to be a snowball fight. One scenario could have more classics on KSWD and more newer music (last 10 years) on KRWM (Older folks tend to lean towards the older music and that could chop some points off KRWM.) As the KJR-FM Christmas stunt from nearly 8 years ago proved with nearly all older '50s to '90s holiday music (they got a 7.7, to KRWM's 10 something), it does work.
 
Bongwater said:
KMPS's highest overall ever was a 6 point something in the '90s or 2000s (they were #1 in a few books.)

Like I said, if KSWD goes Christmas with KRWM, it's going to be a snowball fight. One scenario could have more classics on KSWD and more newer music (last 10 years) on KRWM (Older folks tend to lean towards the older music and that could chop some points off KRWM.) As the KJR-FM Christmas stunt from nearly 8 years ago proved with nearly all older '50s to '90s holiday music (they got a 7.7, to KRWM's 10 something), it does work.
Click to expand...

It would be suicide for Warm to drop the classics as those turn up on the top song lists year after year.
 
KRWM's holiday playlist has been chopped in the past few years. You never hear Gloria Estefan outside 'Christmas Through Your Eyes'. No more Babyface, Kenny Loggins' haunting version of 'The Christmas Song,' Lonestar's 'Reason for the Season,' they were all spun in 2014 and prior. It sounds like any other major-market Christmas station with the same 100 recordings over and over.
*Which is why I love 95.7 the 'Christmas' Mix, WQPW in Valdosta, along with Hits 100 in Pullman. Even our local 100.9 KARY here has a bigger holiday playlist than KRWM. If you want an interesting kick to your ho-ho-ho playlist, they are worth the streaming! OK...back to the PPM discussion!
 
What do you have, 4-6 weeks of xmas music each year? The whole reason it works is the nostalgia feeling it gives listeners and their desire to give that to their families as well. They want the songs that evoke those memories, the ones that set the xmas scene in their minds, and that is always going to be a set list of the well defined classics(bing to mariah). It is funny, so many amazing 70s artists and acts are becoming too old to play yet Bing and company will always have their month to shine each and every year!
 
As for the Christmas music discussion, don't forget KPLZ has been going Christmas for the past couple years. I prefer almost any other Christmas station in the country to Warm. My favorite for about the past five or so seasons has been WTRV in Grand Rapids. I like iHeart's playlist, but it's far too tight, just about as tight as an average CHR.
 
Warm is "tepid" at best... or Luke whatever. A am show that nobody knows, a mid day talent who posts more selfies about WNBA, and is there anyone who does afternoons??? and The Sound hey it's easy to make any increase when you are coming up from the bottom of the pile. Someone get John some help he sounds like he's falling asleep every am, or least some coffee. Delilah, please how long until that old tired bit goes "lights out"? So Yippe for you... Ya all got'a long way to go to reach the big boys who are WAY out in front. Those two can throw snow balls at Xmas, can swap spit or whatever, all it does is drags them both down while the rest of the pack pulls ahead. KPLZ, WARM, and The Sound all 3 not even close. So unless you are a big news talker, sports play by play or you or ANY of your day parts are top 3 you aint winning, you are whining, and you should probably just shut up and focus on the task at hand.
 
Rob Piotrowski said:
It would be suicide for Warm to drop the classics as those turn up on the top song lists year after year.
Click to expand...

This is entirely true. Christmas music stations that do well will highlight about 40-50 classic songs that test well year after year. Without them, you are sunk. With them, you win. What you put in between means very little.
 
Seattle market remains very consistent. THE SOUND has done a nice job beating WARM the last couple of books, but when Xmas rolls around WARM will pull back on top with a tight Christmas list, they had to tighten down when other stations entered the all-Xmas battle. Top rated Xmas stations have about 200 total songs on the playlist and 24-30 powers. It is what works, so why change? Give THE SOUND credit, they have really been growing the last three or four months. Last year they decided not to go All-Christmas. Wonder if they will join WARM, KPLZ and KCMS this year?

The top stations in this market in the prime demos are KISW, KQMV, KJR-FM KPLZ and KIRO. Kind of the way it has been for years, with the exception of a few months here and there. One of these will pop out for a few months, but always seem to come back. Each has established morning shows and been in their format lane for years.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.


Back
Top Bottom