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Southern NH radio market petition
- Thread starter Tomgsinger
- Start date
and this applies to the real world how?
National advertisers don't care about NH, they barely care about Boston.
If the sales weasels can't sell the station without numbers, you need better sales people.
Oh a couple of companies control everything?
We have that in Boston too, where 3 companies, 4 tops, control almost everything except for the Non Coms ( WBUR) that place high in the ratings.
Nielsen, if they stopped laughing long enough to read the petition, would print it out on soft paper and leave it in the bathroom
National advertisers don't care about NH, they barely care about Boston.
If the sales weasels can't sell the station without numbers, you need better sales people.
Oh a couple of companies control everything?
We have that in Boston too, where 3 companies, 4 tops, control almost everything except for the Non Coms ( WBUR) that place high in the ratings.
Nielsen, if they stopped laughing long enough to read the petition, would print it out on soft paper and leave it in the bathroom
First, the concept of radio "market areas" developed in the 60's, not the 80's. When Arbitron introduced diary measurement starting in 1965, whole metro areas could be measured. Previously, survey areas had been limited to criteria such as "the area where a toll free call can be made from the central city" (Hooper) or where in-home personal interviews were convenient to do (Pulse).
With the mailable diary, Arbitron expanded market areas and they generally used the Federal Government's Metropolitan Statistical Area definitions to define a "market". As time went on, a criterion was developed to create Metro Survey Areas based on commuting patterns and radio listening. While changed over the years somewhat, counties are added or removed from MSAs based on the commute patterns and the amount of radio listening to the "home" market.
While most radio MSA's are the same as the Office of Management & Budget MSA's (same initials, different meaning), where there are differences the determining factor is usually the use of radio stations. If a county (or in just a few cases, part of a county) has very different dominant listening from that of the apparent market "central city" it will be dropped from the MSA. Sometimes such a county may switch from one adjoining MSA to another, as long as it fits the commute pattern and listening dominance needed by the rule.
Further, there are cases where markets have been merged or merging has been proposed when two measure markets meet the criteria for being just one, but historically they have been separate rated markets. In those cases, the local stations that subscribe to the ratings vote on the merger. In 1981, Miami and Ft Lauderdale were merged as one market because we, the managers, voted for it. Some years later, it was proposed that the LA MSA be merged with the Riverside / San Bernardino market, but the idea was voted down; LA stations did not want to see their numbers diluted (particularly share and rating) and the Inland Empire stations did not want to be buried by bigger audience LA stations.
MRBIboredop is right that advertisers who use ratings don't place much advertising on smaller market stations. You have to be in the top 100 or so markets to benefit largely from ratings... and then only if your station has major listening levels.
In the case of Manchester, even in that small are, local commercial stations only average one-third of all radio listening. The rest goes to out of market stations. If we look at the surrounding areas, the farther away you get the less the listening to Manchester stations there is. People do not commute into Manchester, they commute away from it. And that is why the market is defined the way it is. Were the geography expanded, you'd see local station share decreasing, which would look bad.
Your idea that stations in the Boston metro "target" Manchester is wrong. Advertisers do not look at surrounding small markets to make buys. They look at the metro they are interested in and buy it. There is no advantage for a Boston station to show up in the Manchester book. There are 10 Boston MSA stations that individually bill more than the total billing of all Manchester stations, so there is no gain there.
When the radio MSAs were created, there was no intent to control ownership (which was limited to one AM, one FM and one TV per market, with limits on overlap, too) as this was an FCC regulatory matter. And there was not intent by Arbitron to "control monopolies" because regulations at the time... and well into the 90's... limited any one company to just 7 AM and 7 FM stations; again, an FCC matter. Arbitron only modified government determined metros when radio listening patterns did not conform to the geography of the government metro... often due to the signal issues of local stations.
When consolidation happened in 1996, the radio markets were well established. And ownership changes did not significantly affect the way radio was listened to, particularly in smaller markets lying at the edge of bigger ones.
Ok, couple things here:
I’d be willing to bet that more people work in Manchester than in Portsmouth, and yet the Portsmouth market is ABSURDLY huge, covering two and a half counties. I’d also be willing to bet that most people in the Concord area commute south for work (Manchester or Boston). And yet, all of these areas (including some areas that are closer to Boston than many parts of Hillsborough county) are included in NH markets.
If you include 80% of Hillsborough county in the Manchester market, you might as well include all of Rockingham County as well, since Portsmouth is far smaller than Manchester.
I’d be willing to bet that more people work in Manchester than in Portsmouth, and yet the Portsmouth market is ABSURDLY huge, covering two and a half counties. I’d also be willing to bet that most people in the Concord area commute south for work (Manchester or Boston). And yet, all of these areas (including some areas that are closer to Boston than many parts of Hillsborough county) are included in NH markets.
If you include 80% of Hillsborough county in the Manchester market, you might as well include all of Rockingham County as well, since Portsmouth is far smaller than Manchester.
So to whom will you send this petition? The czar of radio?
If you want to impress Nielsen, you need numbers. How much population growth has this market experienced? How much has the ad market grown in dollars?
Nielsen re-evaluates markets on a continual basis, but it's done for factual reasons.
If you want to impress Nielsen, you need numbers. How much population growth has this market experienced? How much has the ad market grown in dollars?
Nielsen re-evaluates markets on a continual basis, but it's done for factual reasons.
The main point here is that the Manchester stations get less than a third of the local listening in the current MSA. The farther you get from the center of the market, the lower that number goes. So the listening test, part of the metro definition criteria, fails.
iHeart and Saga control 90% of the revenue in the market, and if they wanted change they might ask for it. But obviously, it is not worth it to them as they do well without any disruption.
Example: WIZD gets around a 13 share in Manchester. In Portsmouth, it gets around a 3, in Concord about the same and in Lebanon/Hanover it has not shown for two years.
Since ratings are basically and principally a sales tool, what would be the benefit of enlarging the market area if the two main players don't seem to care?
If the Manchester market is so small, why is the Portsmouth market so much bigger? The said market extends as far west as the eastern inner suburbs of Manchester and as far southwest as Salem, which makes no sense. It’d make more sense for those areas to be part of the Manchester market, since I bet the only Portsmouth station that gets a lot of listenership in western Rockingham county is WOKQ.
The reality is the sample area for the Manchester market has always been an odd shape on the map.
The other reality, is that Arbitron/Nielsen doesn't care about listeners wants/desires....and only caters to those who pay their bills (Advertisers and station owners.)
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