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April PPM: The Real Story

D

djdan

Sitting in the Chicago airport waiting to go to NY for an agency meeting, such is the life of a sales guy on Memorial Day. Finally got someone to send over the PPM numbers from Clear Channel/katz. What is the big deal? For the record this book counts, there isn't a ton of wobble month to month like diaries and you will see it all in July, but I saw no real surprises.

KPLZ was number one women 25-54 in the Winter Diary, they are number one in the PPM. Kent and Alan were number one in the Winter diary in 25-54 women, they are in the PPM. BJ Shea was number one men 18-34 and 25-54 in the Winter Diary, he is number one in the PPM. In adults KJR-Fm was top five in the winter diary, along with KRWM, KPLZ, KISW, KCMS and they are all top five in the PPM. If you combine the KIRO AM and FM PPM numbers it is about the same as the KIRO AM/FM combo was in the diary. (so maybe they shouldn't have split them?) KISW, KUBE and KBKS were top three in the Winter Diary 18-34, they are top three in the PPM, with KBKS barely ahead of KUBE. The Country battle is much closer and KJAQ beat KZOK, but we have seen that before in the diary. Whenever KJAQ does well it hurts KZOK and the Country battle has been up and down for over 18 months. Turns out they are a tie, which is kind of what they look like in the four book diary.

On the losing side of things, KQMV has been declining since summer and KWJZ has the exact shame share it had in the diary. KOMO AM was out of the top 15 in the diary and remains there in the PPM. Same for KVI, KJR-AM, KPTK and the long list of AM stations. KNND was in trouble in the diary and looks just as bad in the PPM. KMTT had already fired their PD and have the exact same number 25-54 in the PPM as they had in the Winter 09 diary.

So why all the shock and awe? Looks like business as usual to me. I am actually surprised PPM is so similar to the diary results from Winter.
(Want to bet KRWM and KCMS do well during the Christmas PPM, like they did in the Diary?)
 
You may be right sales cowboy. It is all about puuurrrrception :)
KMPS was percieved the better country station when the numbers as you point out show the two stations are neck and neck. WOLF does better in mornings and KMPS in evenings and weekends. The only shock is they are way down ranking eight or nine instead of top five and that is a bit of a change :-[ I guess puurception is reality. Lots of folks thought KPLZ, JACK and KJR were second rate cause their 12+ numbers had em mid pak in the diary but where it counts they have been players for some time. You make good ole points that they were stronger than we all thought. KIRO and kOMO are such legendary calls that radio folks assume they are bigger players than they really have been for some time :-[ Got to say this cowboy is shocked KIR0-AM with the Mariners is in the turd whirler and that KIRO-FM has zero pulse when they were split apart. I also though the MOUNTAIN would do better, but there's that nasty ole purrrception rearing its hind legs again. Good post cowboy ;D
 
I was reviewing the data from several large markets while traveling from NYC to Los Angeles yesterday. In the Seattle DMA, I was struck mostly about how country in general dropped to mid-to-lower pack in adults. What has for years been a fairly strong format with loyal audience seems to punctuate the differences between diary ratings and PPM, that being respondents who fill out a diary (usually the final week of the survey) are merely voting for the station which they generally liked, but in fact may not be listening to with any regularity. We see this sort of thing quite a bit when doing conventional focus group research. Sometimes we'll ask the group the same question, just in a different way to see if we get a different response. In at least 50% of the responses we get an alternate answer, chocking up the response as a vote for their favorite station.

Even in Los Angeles we're seeing news/talk stations take a hit because of very short TSL spans. As someone else pointed out here, listeners are tuning into the radio for a quick traffic update then back to their CD's, Ipod, or music stations. Much of the radio listening has, as we suspected, moved to entirely in-vehicle listening. Even though the commute may be long for some, they do a lot of punching around. Stations promoting long music sweeps then bunched long commercial breaks or talkative morning shows seem to suffer from dial punching. Again this seems to hold up with some assumptions that most Seattle listeners don't want a bunch of "dancing bear" morning shows, but prefer music with traffic reports relevant to their commute.

Dan makes a good point with his comment that successful stations remain so in PPM, but certainly there is a cream-rising-to-the-top factor. It appears that country may not be cream after all, but merely Cool Whip.
 
Rumor has it early May numbers out today and the same stations are in the hunt, same stations as april in the turdwhirler :p Now I know what the stations in Houston and Philly felt like. Damn different ???
 
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