I posed this question after Meruelo (Media Holdings) dropped out of the PPM surveys. So especially in large markets, can smaller clusters live/survive on smaller agency and direct revenue alone?
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Can small radio clusters survive without Nielsen data?
- Thread starter leethalweapon
- Start date
If the cluster is small, then anymore that may be your only choice. Going up against larger groups with centralized national ad teams means you can't swim in that pool. Paying for ratings when they don't help you with national is a waste of resources.
In sub 100 markets a lot of the "decision makers: ad buyers" are local. That being said, a lot of new automobile dealerships are becoming part of large companies were most decisions are made somewhere else. The same with big box stores. If shouldn't be hard to figure out if paying Nielsen is worth it .
I don’t know how much it helps the stations sell, but there are sites like Locals Love Us where people can sign up for free accounts, self report how old they are, their education level, and their income and vote on favorite businesses and tv/radio stations in their city.
I hope there is some kind of security on who gets that data! Of course people post some
stupid stuff.
Example : My neighbor across the street posted vacation pictures of his trip to Italy on line. Next day I looked out and saw a UHaul truck pull in his driveway and two dudes went around the back. I called the cops. About 2 minutes later you could hear the sirens. They took off. I took a picture of the UHaul's license. It was reported stolen and they found it later that day. The dudes cut the phone, cable wires, and removed the power meter. I guess that stopped the alarm.
Good Lord! More collection of data from people who don't know better.
Yep, happens all the time. Even after years of social media horror stories, people still insist on announcing they're vacationing, or handing over their personal lives thinking that only their friends and family are looking. That used to drive me crazy; my folks would get some offers to win a $500 gift certificate if they would just fill out this survey. They finally learned when I explained (again) that all that information is sold off to people they don't want to hanging around.
How many people do you think actually tell Locals Love Us or other sites the truth about what they earn a year, how old they are, and their education level? Most of them probably just want to vote for their choices and sign off.
If we were talking about a place like The Villages in Florida, I'd say North of 5,000.
This has been going on in one form or another for years. I remember back in the days before the interwebs ordering car parts and electronics via catalogs. There was often a package of junk coupons in the box when it was delivered - cigar clubs, cheap check printing places, vitamins/supplements/snake oil, etc. There was often one ad in there telling people that if they'd fill out the form with their info, they'd get free samples, coupons, giveaways, gifts and prizes. For the fun of it I sent in a few of those using fake names and my work address at the time. Never got any free stuff or prizes, but sure got a lot of junk mail and ads and people looking to sell more crap.
You'd be surprised - especially if it's packaged as a "get something for nothing" freebie or if you get coupons or discounts for filling those things out. What did PT Barnum famously say? Aren't we living in a time when nearly 1/2 the people in the country blindly follow whatever they're spoonfed by radio and TV hosts and they happily vote for a guy who's racked up something like 91 credible charges across 4 different criminal cases? Respectfully, I think you're giving many people far too much credit in your comment above
There is an interesting piece from Inside Radio a couple of years ago that speaks to this, primarily in smaller markets like Madison, Wis., where local sales have always tended to be more important.
www.insideradio.com
You could probably make a cogent argument that the Spanish-language audience, even in a large market, is more similar to Madison, Wis. than it is to Madison Ave.
Small Market Radio Is Re-assessing The Value Of Ratings.
Radio groups that operate in small and mid-size markets are revaluating whether they want to renew their ratings contracts in light of what they say is lower ROI from their
You could probably make a cogent argument that the Spanish-language audience, even in a large market, is more similar to Madison, Wis. than it is to Madison Ave.
"Villages" just means they are old, not stupid.
Not if you look at the markets that are highly Hispanic.
First, most buys of Spanish language radio are done by Hispanic agencies or Hispanic divisions of larger agencies. They buy based on the market and the ratings among Spanish dominant Hispanics or, sometimes, all Hispanics.
If there is Spanish creative, they buy usually goes that way and the market rank is based on Hispanic population. There are quite a few markets that are 30%, 40% and even 50% or over Hispanic so those stand on their own.
LA is 47% Hispanic and that means about 6,000,000 or so Hispanics in the market. That is more than Non-Hispanic whites in LA who are 28% of the population.
I never meant to imply they were 'stupid'. Unfortunately, however, these data harvesting scams do prey on the elderly. The enticements to 'sign up' to win cash or prizes are designed to be convincing for older folks.
In some cases, they use technology that seniors are not up on to create something totally inaccurate but that will get those seniors to bite.
I am amazed that most people my age don't get even the basic difference between WiFi and wired internet connection and think that their cable set top box "has WiFi built in"... with this story having multiple variants.
The other thing to consider is that many older folks are simply more trusting and don't understand that there are truly bad actors out there, disguised as reputable people or reputable companies. My dad is one good example. He came from a time (and ran his business) when a quick conversation and a hand shake was as solid as a lawyer-drafted contract. His dad was president of a bank and there were stories of close friends calling him on a Friday evening needing to buy a car. He'd meet them at the bank, give them the $$ they needed and tell them to come back on Monday to sign the paperwork. Try that in 2024... So you have older folks who grew up or conducted their businesses with that mentality and level of trust getting SPAM e-mails and stuff in the mail that looks incredibly reputable, or gets them excited about a free prize - something that was more common back in their day of green stamps and decent gifts and incentives for doing things like opening a bank account or looking at real estate, and a lot of them trust what they see and read, jump all in on it, and sadly, get badly bitten.
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