SHAKE UP ON MORNING SHOW AT KILT-FM

[radiogooroo]

I know how to play the diary game (write it down, you're listening to XXXX), but how do you play the PPM game? Sends out your packet on other stations? LOL

A lot of quarter hour maintenance stuff became a lot more critical on the programming side, but there was also a technical component.

For example, you have to run your audio through the PPM encoders with fairly consistent levels, and they need to be sufficiently hot to encode properly. Arbitron (and now Nielsen) tells you exactly how high the levels need to be going into the PPM encoders. It's not a secret. You can achieve this consistent, high enough level by putting something like an Aphex Compellor in front of the PPM encoder.

You'd be astonished at how many stations didn't bother. They just threw the PPM encoder in the chain wherever and called it good. If a jock on a particular shift ran their board hot, they were probably OK. If they ran their levels in the mud, they weren't properly encoded.

 

[davideduardo]

A lot of quarter hour maintenance stuff became a lot more critical on the programming side, but there was also a technical component.

For example, you have to run your audio through the PPM encoders with fairly consistent levels, and they need to be sufficiently hot to encode properly. Arbitron (and now Nielsen) tells you exactly how high the levels need to be going into the PPM encoders. It's not a secret. You can achieve this consistent, high enough level by putting something like an Aphex Compellor in front of the PPM encoder.

You'd be astonished at how many stations didn't bother. They just threw the PPM encoder in the chain wherever and called it good. If a jock on a particular shift ran their board hot, they were probably OK. If they ran their levels in the mud, they weren't properly encoded.

I don't know of any improper placement of the encoders. There were over 6 years of PPM testing in Philly and Houston prior to the first currency reports. By then, there was a fairly detailed set of instructions on how and where to install the encoder. Generally, it was the last thing in the audio chain before the Optimod or Omnia (or other compressor / peak limiter).

There was discussion of putting the encoder at the studio, ahead of the STL, with the Omnia or Optimod at the transmitter, as opposed to putting the encoder at the transmitter after the STL. Some of this discussion was about accessibility as opposed to effectiveness.

The PPM only went in the top 48 markets, and the roll out took the better part of two years. In general, those were stations that had big market engineering skills on the staff, at least in the stations that mattered. And, since the 50's stations of all sizes had, Sta-Levels, LevelDevils, Audimax and Volumax pairs and then everything from a bunch of LA3-As with a crossover feeding an Optimod to Compellors and Omnias. There was some form of AGC / Leveling followed by Compression / Peak Limiting at essentially every station.

There was always concern that the less dense the audio, the fewer encoding opportunities would be available. So along came the Voltair, which "enhanced" any available audio on the set of tiny frequency bands that the PPM encoder could use to insert the code burst. The only problem here is that, set aggressively, the Voltair brings up unwanted noise and/or artifacts that lie in those little audio slices, making the station sound very strange.

There can be as many as 12 to 13 PPM code bursts a minute in dense material. The issue is when the program material is not dense enough to allow encoding for long periods of time. It only takes 5 detections in any 5 different minutes in a quarter hour to get credit (actually only 3 in some cases given the "missing minute" rule) but stations fight for every one of those detections.

 

[davideduardo]

One thing nobody is mentioning in this thread is the shift from diary methodology to PPM at Arbitron just prior to these changes at KILT.

Some stations played the diary game better, and clearly KILT was one of them. Some stations played the PPM game better.

The PPM was in operation in Houston for 4 years prior to the "currency" issue of the PPM in '08. All diary book subscribers who wanted to got monthly data CDs with the results and a program to look at them in. So did some of the industry consultants and corporate research folks. Some of us were even on Arbitron committees to go over, first, the Philly results and, then, the Houston reports. In fact, two of the committees I was on had representatives from the corporate owners of both KILT and its country competitor.

By 2008 anyone who cared in Houston knew the differences between the diary and PPM as we had been comparing reports for about four years and knew the differences.

The major change brought on by the PPM was a reduction in PUR of nearly 40%, a decline not reflected in shares, but definitely shown in ratings... and agencies by ratings points, not shares.

 

[TheBigA]

One thing nobody is mentioning in this thread is the shift from diary methodology to PPM at Arbitron just prior to these changes at KILT.

I specifically remember attending a seminar at that time where KILT was the example, They did a live on air interview with Kenny Chesney, and showed how the audience responded in PPM. The conclusion was don't do this. I think Chuck Geiger was PD at the time.

 

[davideduardo]

I specifically remember attending a seminar at that time where KILT was the example, They did a live on air interview with Kenny Chesney, and showed how the audience responded in PPM. The conclusion was don't do this. I think Chuck Geiger was PD at the time.

Was that the same seminar that included the Pamela Anderson interview with Stern? They used that in a number of presentations contrasting boring with compelling content.

The original Anderson interview was in the second year of PPM testing in Philadelphia, 2003.

 

[TheBigA]

Was that the same seminar that included the Pamela Anderson interview with Stern?

I don't think so. I would have remembered that

 

[radiogooroo]

I don't know of any improper placement of the encoders. There were over 6 years of PPM testing in Philly and Houston prior to the first currency reports. By then, there was a fairly detailed set of instructions on how and where to install the encoder. Generally, it was the last thing in the audio chain before the Optimod or Omnia (or other compressor / peak limiter).

There was discussion of putting the encoder at the studio, ahead of the STL, with the Omnia or Optimod at the transmitter, as opposed to putting the encoder at the transmitter after the STL. Some of this discussion was about accessibility as opposed to effectiveness.

The PPM only went in the top 48 markets, and the roll out took the better part of two years. In general, those were stations that had big market engineering skills on the staff, at least in the stations that mattered. And, since the 50's stations of all sizes had, Sta-Levels, LevelDevils, Audimax and Volumax pairs and then everything from a bunch of LA3-As with a crossover feeding an Optimod to Compellors and Omnias. There was some form of AGC / Leveling followed by Compression / Peak Limiting at essentially every station.

There was always concern that the less dense the audio, the fewer encoding opportunities would be available. So along came the Voltair, which "enhanced" any available audio on the set of tiny frequency bands that the PPM encoder could use to insert the code burst. The only problem here is that, set aggressively, the Voltair brings up unwanted noise and/or artifacts that lie in those little audio slices, making the station sound very strange.

There can be as many as 12 to 13 PPM code bursts a minute in dense material. The issue is when the program material is not dense enough to allow encoding for long periods of time. It only takes 5 detections in any 5 different minutes in a quarter hour to get credit (actually only 3 in some cases given the "missing minute" rule) but stations fight for every one of those detections.

I'll just be a bit more blunt. There was no AGC of any kind before the PPM encoder at KILT prior to 2014.

The airchain was studio, main/backup studio switcher, EAS insertion switcher, primary PPM encoder, backup PPM encoder, then it was split to the main and backup STLs.

What impact - if any - this had on ratings, I really can't say. What I can say is it didn't follow Arbitron's guidelines for PPM implementation.

The problem was identified and corrected after some turnover in the engineering department.

 

[davideduardo]

I don't think so. I would have remembered that

Yes, it peaked when she discussed the sybian machine. Stern at his best / worst / most typical!

They also did a series of presentations that showed how important, with short listening spans, repeat incidents in the same day were critical. They even had a "slide" in the PPT presentation that showed one stations, in the SF market, that held the ongoing record by consistently averaging over a dozen incidents a day with its cume. To illustrate the typical short span, they showed several of that station's listener patterns of totally random, but repeating, listening patterns.

Of course, most stations with 3 to 5 person morning crews tended to do horribly, as each one wanted mike time and the tune-out was incredible with the PPM.

I did research on another Houston morning show, and found the same issues as KILT... too much talk and way too much by secondary participants. Boring. We fixed it, and the transition to PPM was very gentle for that show... and station. 4.8 in diary, 4.6 after first year of PPM.

 

[davideduardo]

I'll just be a bit more blunt. There was no AGC of any kind before the PPM encoder at KILT prior to 2014.

That would certainly be surprising. I can't think of any station I was in in a rated market from the 60's onward that did not have some type of AGC at the studio. Many even had it on a send/return on the board so that the air staff would have a better idea of how mixes and the like sounded.

What impact - if any - this had on ratings, I really can't say. What I can say is it didn't follow Arbitron's guidelines for PPM implementation.

The H&H show had a lot of talk, and we know that in most cases (see BigA's mention of the use of KILT as an example of "bad" PPM programming) such talk allows fewer PPM tags to be inserted. We also know that that kind of show did not generally do well in PPM, encoding or not.

The problem was identified and corrected after some turnover in the engineering department.

There have always been different schools of thought on processing, with a few die-hards believing that all aggressive processing was evil, even if well done. Amazing that this would occur at a major market, corporate owned station.

What is most surprising is that KILT did not figure out what was in store for it in PPM during the FOUR YEAR test phase!

 

[radiogooroo]

That would certainly be surprising. I can't think of any station I was in in a rated market from the 60's onward that did not have some type of AGC at the studio. Many even had it on a send/return on the board so that the air staff would have a better idea of how mixes and the like sounded.

The H&H show had a lot of talk, and we know that in most cases (see BigA's mention of the use of KILT as an example of "bad" PPM programming) such talk allows fewer PPM tags to be inserted. We also know that that kind of show did not generally do well in PPM, encoding or not.

There have always been different schools of thought on processing, with a few die-hards believing that all aggressive processing was evil, even if well done. Amazing that this would occur at a major market, corporate owned station.

What is most surprising is that KILT did not figure out what was in store for it in PPM during the FOUR YEAR test phase!

There actually was a talent processor to produce "fake air" for the jocks to listen to, but absolutely no AGC before the PPM encoders of any kind.

I can't say what the motivation or lack of it was for not having an AGC prior to the PPM encoders. The processing was very loud and aggressive, but it was all done in the main processor, which was an Optimod 8400 still running the original 2002 software when it was retired from service.

There were quite a few quirky things about KILT engineering back then. Another oddity was the station's main transmitter was a 1982 vintage Harris FM25K tube transmitter. That wouldn't be really odd in and of itself. What made it odd was there was a 2012 Nautel sitting about 6 feet away from it, which was the backup transmitter. There was nothing wrong with the Nautel.

 

[davideduardo]

There were quite a few quirky things about KILT engineering back then. Another oddity was the station's main transmitter was a 1982 vintage Harris FM25K tube transmitter. That wouldn't be really odd in and of itself. What made it odd was there was a 2012 Nautel sitting about 6 feet away from it, which was the backup transmitter. There was nothing wrong with the Nautel.

That is bizarre... a Nautel of that vintage is about 30% more efficient than the Harris. It has a better exciter. It has better metering and control functions.

Sounds like a totally Luddite radio station, with an aging morning show and antiquated or bizarre engineering.

 

[TheBigA]

Sounds like a totally Luddite radio station, with an aging morning show and antiquated or bizarre engineering.

This....is CBS. Kind of like the Museum of Broadcasting. No wonder it was started by Paley.

 

[davideduardo]

I specifically remember attending a seminar at that time where KILT was the example, They did a live on air interview with Kenny Chesney, and showed how the audience responded in PPM. The conclusion was don't do this. I think Chuck Geiger was PD at the time.

ANNCR: I'm pretty sure Geiger never worked in Houston... sure did a lot of other country stations, though I can't remember them all as my Geiger counter is broken.

SFX (rimshot)

 

[Rickw4pc]

One reason I love this board is that I get real answers from real people who have done it. Thanks.. this old guy needs to go up the mountain and put some audio in.