As 880 WCBS comes to an end this week I know folks from all around the country will be tuned in via stream to hear the goodbyes and it got me to thinking about out of market streaming. There are a few out of market stations I listen to quite regularly; a few hometown favorites, my old stations from my radio days and stations where I catch syndicated shows on the weekend. Does the people meter capture (and count) out of market streams and then report it to the home market? Or is stream listening only important if it's within the market?
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Out of market streaming impact on the ratings
- Thread starter vw86
- Start date
IIRC the meters report back to "it's home" market and the reporting goes there. I seriously doubt someone in NYC will pay for a meter hit in LA. Some operators have "local" commercials "geofenced" in for their of town signals. I believe in Atlanta, WCBS FM had local commercials the last time I listened 2+years ago.
If a non-market station receives enough listening, it will show up in that panelist's market. For example, KLTN/Houston's Stream once showed up with a 1.4 share in Greensboro, NC. So someone in the Greensboro market streamed KLTN enough for it to register. The listening is tied to the panelist's home market, not the station's. That being said, it is an exceedingly rare occurrence, with only a few examples across 48 markets, 13 reports a year for 14 years (~8,700 surveys.)
What about actual over the air listening? For example, say a panelist goes out of town for a week and listens to radio in the car. Do those days count toward the market the panelist is physically in at the time? Or does that OTA listening still get credit in the home market of the panelist?
Credit still goes to the market where the meter-bearer resides.
And the liklighood that a panelist will take along the PPM and the charger on an extended trip is minimal.
I have often wondered what Nielsen staff would say if a panelist contacts them and says, "I am going out of town for a week". Do they really, really tell the person to pack the meter gear? Or do they make not of non-compliance for vacation or work travel? I never asked that question as, in any case, they would not have been listening to "my" pet station.
You likely would not listen enough to qualify the station for an outside market. And unless those "away" stations are subscribed to your home market's book, they would not show up anyway.
I believe I told this story here some time ago, but I'll bring it up now in case I didn't. Back in the pre-PPM days, I received a diary in the mail. The week I was to track happened to be my vacation week. I lived in the Hartford market at the time, but I spent only one of the seven days there. On the other days, I was in the Albany NY market (two days) and the Boston market (four days). I listened to radio every day and entered my listening -- as accurately as I could -- for all of it. Among my entries were two stations that I conceivably could have been listening to at home but wasn't -- WBZ and WGY. Would either of those stations have counted toward my "home" book or would neither be eligible for a rating in Hartford even if I were home at the time?
They would have counted in Hartford. Your two days in Albany would likely not have been enough to get WGY to the reporting threshold of the era for Hartford (which I believe was 0.5% in the 90s and 00s).
I would guess WBZ appeared semi-regularly in the Hartford book, and your listening would have been a small part.
I wasn't aware they had to subscribe to the home market book to even show up at all. Here in Orlando there are plenty of areas where Tampa stations come in loud and clear and I've always wondered why none of the major Tampa stations ever show up in the Orlando book with a zero point low (or vice versa in the Tampa book). That helps it make sense.
The public release only shows subscribed stations or non-subscribed ones with a rating of 0.1 or over (that is over a 1.5 share in nearly all markets). Qualifying stations show in the release issued to subscribers and agencies, no matter what, as long as they meet the minimum reporting standards or one of the exceptions.
A station in Tampa does not have to subscribe to show in Orlando for paid clients... but they won't show in the public releases unless a subscriber to the local market report. A good example of non-subscribers showing can be seen in Riverside/San Bernardino where plenty of LA stations meet the requirement for "significant shares" even though nearly none are subscribed. But the smaller LA stations that are not subscribed do not show.
His temporary stay in Hartford did not qualify him for inclusion in the Hartford book. Only residents of the Hartford MSA are tabulated in the Hartford book. Listening to any station anywhere in the country is tabulated in the book for the market where the diarykeeper lives.
A good example: in one book around 1979, WZNT in San Juan, PR, showed in the NYC book. This was because enough Nuyoricans with diaries visited PR in the survey period and heard that station (which had a 33.5 in the local book) and wrote it in their New York MSA diaries upon their return.
Yes, and CTListener stated that he "lived in the Hartford market at the time".
Generally, no.
Using again the Riverside/San Bernardino market next to LA. Most of the "big" LA stations do very well there. But they don't subscribe as nobody is going to use a very expensive spot rate buy on an LA station when they can buy the local Inland Empire stations for a fraction of the rate.
Only if a station does equally well in two adjacent markets that are similar in size would buying "the other market" make sense. But those larger coverage stations are going to be commensurately priced.
The way streaming gets measured is by the streaming server. It reports how many users there are and their geographic location. You get charged based on the number of users. It's more accurate than Nielsen, but doesn't provide the detailed demographics. Streaming ads are based this way, as are streaming music royalties. From what I've read, the Nielsen streaming numbers are lower than what the streaming server reports.
The most common explanation is that many who stream, whether on computers or cellular phones, may click on an audio source and not disconnect for hours if not the whole day.
More than once I have found that a 20 minute listening session was left open for hours while I did other things and had it running in the background and muted.
I listen to AT40 the 80s on an out of market iHeart stream because it's a good timeslot for when I want to listen to the show. It sounds someone with a meter wouldn't make any difference at all for the station since they're out of market. But they're able to see the stream listening coming in at that specific time on their own.
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