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Townsquare vs. Nielsen: Who cancelled whom?

davideduardo

davideduardo

Moderator/Administrator
Staff member
One industry newsletter is reporting tonight that the recent Nielsen cancellations of 9 markets has a possibly interesting story:

It appears that Townsquare is cancelling Nielsen in all of its markets, including 8 of the 9 cancelled ones. Some of the cancellations are not in effect until a contract expires, but the report from JDC is that they are going ratings-less, even cancelling Eastlan as well.

As some of the newsletters make facts out of a set of limited ingredients, let's see how this plays out. Is it real, is it a method of getting a cost reduction or just a rumor?
 
My view is why should the radio companies continue to pay full price for ratings at a time when sales are down by 50%? It makes no sense. My car insurance company is rebating me 15% because they know I'm driving less. Shouldn't Nielsen do the same for radio? Perhaps they'll discover they don't need Nielsen as much as they thought. As we've seen in the past, some companies will do short-term cancelations, and renew at times when they need it. At a time when they're furloughing staff, paying for Nielsen is just another expense they don't need. I'm surprised more companies haven't done it.
 
TheBigA said:
My view is why should the radio companies continue to pay full price for ratings at a time when sales are down by 50%? It makes no sense. My car insurance company is rebating me 15% because they know I'm driving less. Shouldn't Nielsen do the same for radio? Perhaps they'll discover they don't need Nielsen as much as they thought. As we've seen in the past, some companies will do short-term cancelations, and renew at times when they need it. At a time when they're furloughing staff, paying for Nielsen is just another expense they don't need. I'm surprised more companies haven't done it.
Click to expand...

The problem is that Nielsen has no way to reduce the costs in the PPM markets where most of their revenue is derived.

Maintaining a panel is much easier than starting over where they would have to recruit new panelists and go through a start-up period to roll out the markets again. It took several years to roll out the PPM from 2008 to 2010, and that period was filled with panel irregularities and shortcomings. This would happen again, as once a panelist is dropped, it is not easy to get them back. And with a panel, each household has to be picked based on every single stratification variable so that the panel mirrors the universe.

In any case, the issues with Townsquare and other possible pro-cancellation companies is that they are for the most part not in PPM markets anyway. It's been long rumored that Nielsen would like to get out of all markets under #100 and even, perhaps, cancel the one between 50 and 100 that are not under the new continuous measurement and only had two books a year.
 
If Townsquare stops buying, that will be a huge nail in the coffin for a lot of the smaller-market books, especially the ones where Townsquare is the big dog ... Tuscaloosa, Duluth, Davenport/Moline come to mind.

Presumably it was the nail in the coffin for Texarkana, Battle Creek, and Twin Falls, where Townsquare was the only subscriber with a full cluster.
 
TheBigA said:
Everyone is taking a hit, why shouldn't Nielsen? Their business model is not my problem.
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Another issue would, of course, be the MRC certifications. I'd imagine that any cut or suspension would require a new certification process.

That has considerable weight among buyers.
 
TheBigA said:
Everyone is taking a hit, why shouldn't Nielsen? Their business model is not my problem.
Click to expand...

Exactly. Either Nielsen needs to reevaluate their margins in this unique environment, or risk more groups dropping off and losing the business completely.
 
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