Will stations go back to in-person music tests?

[davideduardo]

During the pandemic, stations have either not tested or used "OMT" (online music test) procedures to check out their library songs.

Many people are still hesitant to attend any kind of "group of stranger" gathering; heck, I didn't go to the first weekend of a Bond movie yesterday for the first time in over 5 years because of virus concerns. In fact, nearly half of all persons are concerned or definitely not willing to join large groups.

"With vaccinations surging at the start of the summer many of us started making plans for resuming pre-pandemic activities, but the Delta variant has thrown a massive variable in those plans."

Here is a NuVudoo article about music testing in the immediate future.

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"While some programmers and managers still prefer auditorium music tests over online library tests, we see that many people would be uncomfortable going to an indoor gathering right now – even if they might have been excited about it back in June."

 

[TheBigA]

What the article doesn't talk about is the confidence programmers have in online music test results. I haven't seen any data on that.

My concern is always about statistical bias. At one time, online polls were frowned upon because one needed internet service to take part, and that was considered a bias. But at this point, perhaps we're past that. Because if you can get past the bias issue, I think you can get more information in an online test. "More" means better to me.

 

[davideduardo]

What the article doesn't talk about is the confidence programmers have in online music test results. I haven't seen any data on that.

I've been involved with online testing, and there are multiple concerns.

First is whether the recruit is actually in the age group desired and has the general music style and genre preferences needed to judge a library. Also of concern is whether they are heavy enough users of radio to be familiar with the songs and the library in general.

Any at-home online test is subject to distractions, such as other family member interruptions, cell phone calls and messages, and the like.

On the other hand, "worse is nothing". There are ways to look at respondents to find those who are outliers, and then eliminate them from the sample. There are advantages in large markets in that you can get people from every area in the market, not just those close to the AMT venue.

My concern is always about statistical bias. At one time, online polls were frowned upon because one needed internet service to take part, and that was considered a bias. But at this point, perhaps we're past that. Because if you can get past the bias issue, I think you can get more information in an online test. "More" means better to me.

You can't get more information in an OMT because the attention span is not controllable. Some research companies test a library of 600 songs using three sets of 200 different people, because they feel that doing a full test without a moderator and supervision is not effective. That means that you can't do additional things like prototype pods to verify the station blend and mix and it is hard to do a long set of questions about radio and streaming usage, stations listened to, etc.

Again, the big issue is not being able to verify that the 28 year old woman you recruited is actually doing the test and is not really 54 years old and a guy.

 

[TheBigA]

The other aspect of this is how much a station or group wants to get involved in the whole vaccination and masking debate. Certainly all of that is subject to state laws. It's not a good situation. As it is, stations are running into problems with their own employees, much less dealing with outside volunteers. If it was up to me, I'd postpone as long as I can. Stations seem to be getting information they trust and are acting on it. There was a very major star whose latest single died at #10, and the reason was "bad research."

 

[davideduardo]

As it is, stations are running into problems with their own employees, much less dealing with outside volunteers.

I don't think any broadcast company is doing its research in-house today. They all contract a company like Harker or NuVudoo to do tests and those companies partner with local research recruiters to get the participants and get them to a hall or meeting room.

 

[seatownmedia]

Yes, budgets mostly prevent in-house these days. If research is happening today it may be from indie companies mentioned above, but even more likely stations copying successful playlists from winning stations. However, this isn’t anything new.

 

[davideduardo]

Yes, budgets mostly prevent in-house these days. If research is happening today it may be from indie companies mentioned above, but even more likely stations copying successful playlists from winning stations. However, this isn’t anything new.

Very few broadcast companies ever had in-house programming research divisions or companies. It was and is not about budgets, it's about skill sets and the ability to change suppliers just like advertisers prefer not to have an in-house ad agency.

Research companies in the industry do a lot more than just music tests.

Music Tests (AMTs) were created by The Research Group back in the early 80's and sold to stations individually. Callout began as an in-house thing done by pulling random numbers out of phone books and playing hooks to potential listeners and that began in San Diego and Phoenix in the mid-70's.

Clear Channel acquired Critical Mass Media as part of a station acquisition and also got Critical Mass as part of an acquisition that came from Frank Cody and Owen Leach that involved Premiere.

Both of the Clear Channel companies did research for other stations as well.

Hispanic Broadcasting (which became Univision Radio) later owned Momentum Research, which had been Leach's new company after selling Critical Mass. That was dissolved around 2000 when a new research division called "Servicio de Información Programativa" or "SIP" was created: It had a 60 person call center and two field teams for one-on-ones, AMTs and other in-market research using the dial method of data collection. That was dissolved in 2012 in favor of using outside vendors.

Companies have always shared tests internally. This is particularly common where a group might have the same format in several Plains states and share projects between Wichita, Topeka, Kansas City, Omaha and the like. In the pre-consolidation era, a country station in Tallahassee might alternate testing with one in Albany, GA and one in Dothan, AL, doing one in just one market every 6 months and repeating the cycle.

Otherwise, stations used and still use Coleman, Edison, Harker, Ramsey, Troy Research, Global Media and maybe dozen more to do projects ranging from perceptual studies, format searches, awareness-trial-usage studies, AMTs, call-out, focus groups and one-on-ones. Several new companies have been created, such as some of the Critical Mass folks now heading NuVoodu.

 

[gr8oldies]

Would a Zoom call allow a moderator and thus seeing who's participating?

 

[davideduardo]

Would a Zoom call allow a moderator and thus seeing who's participating?

Online tests are not moderated. They are done on the respondent's schedule, often in little pieces. The cost of live moderation of 100 or so 3 hour tests would be in the ten to fifteen thousand dollar range.

 

[TheBigA]

I don't think any broadcast company is doing its research in-house today. They all contract a company like Harker or NuVudoo to do tests and those companies partner with local research recruiters to get the participants and get them to a hall or meeting room.

Doesn't really change the situation. Somebody has to set the rules. If a company, whoever it is, is inviting people to an indoor event, they have to tell the people in advance what the situation is. Masks required? Immunization? Otherwise, no can do.

 

[davideduardo]

Doesn't really change the situation. Somebody has to set the rules. If a company, whoever it is, is inviting people to an indoor event, they have to tell the people in advance what the situation is. Masks required? Immunization? Otherwise, no can do.

The issue is that with the rules (self-imposed or government mandates), you may eliminate over 50% of the candidate base, and there is no research to tell us if those who don't want to vaccinate or those who are fearful of public gatherings have different tastes than those who are willing to attend. That is enough unpredictability for both research companies and stations not to trust AMTs and reason to give more confidence to an IMT.