B98.5 & Star 94 PPM Listening

[RoddyFreeman]

I saw some detailed numbers yesterday from Arbitron's October (pre-currency) PPM report.

B98.5, as noted, had a huge cume, making it the the most tuned-in station in the market. No surprise there; AC has been doing this with PPM in the other markets measured.

Star 94 had a very high cume, about equal to Q100's cume. This too has been common with CHR's. In fact, Star and Q100 were virtually tied in cume.

Both B98.5 and Star 94, however, had unbelievably miniscule time spent listening. Let's just say you could count the average weekly hours spent listening on one hand and have fingers left over. I had never seen TSL numbers that small.

So both stations are getting sampled, but they have to figure out how to keep people tuned in.

 

[RTibbs]

Maybe it is all the background music they pick up. Those two stations especially B98 tend to be the stations I hear as muzak at a lot of places. It would cause a rise in cume but certainly lower the TSL as you are only listening when you are a captive audience.

As I always say there is nothing more soothing then hearing Jordan Graye as you sit in the waiting room waiting for your colonoscopy.

 

[MsMusicRadio]

So why doesn't B98.5 have competition?

 

[RoddyFreeman]

Maybe it is all the background music they pick up. Those two stations especially B98 tend to be the stations I hear as muzak at a lot of places. It would cause a rise in cume but certainly lower the TSL as you are only listening when you are a captive audience.

As I always say there is nothing more soothing then hearing Jordan Graye as you sit in the waiting room waiting for your colonoscopy.

You're definitely correct that the PPM picks up much more listening, and that's the reason for the high cumes in general, AC in particular. And you might be on to something; people hearing B98.5 in a store for a few minutes are averaged into the TSL number. Even so, the TSL numbers for B98.5 and Star 94 were tiny.

And personally, while waiting for a colonoscopy, I would prefer an oldies station with a 5000-song playlist.

 

[RTibbs]

I prefer a colonoscopy over reading posts about 5,000 song playlists.

 

[TheRealOtherNeil]

As I always say there is nothing more soothing then hearing Jordan Graye as you sit in the waiting room waiting for your colonoscopy.

This is where you and I differ. There is nothing more soothing then hearing Kate McCarthy as you sit in the waiting room waiting for your root canal.

 

[KarsonWithaK]

Maybe it is all the background music they pick up. Those two stations especially B98 tend to be the stations I hear as muzak at a lot of places. It would cause a rise in cume but certainly lower the TSL as you are only listening when you are a captive audience.

As I always say there is nothing more soothing then hearing Jordan Graye as you sit in the waiting room waiting for your colonoscopy.

I think I read somewhere that only about 30% of a stations cume is coming from the "background music they pick up" scenario using the PPM. This would infer that 70% of the cume is coming from other locations like the car, which I believe is the primary area for listening. If this is true, then the TSL problem is not one of going "into and out of" areas that are playing these stations but rather a lot of flipping by the CHR/Hot AC audience.

My wife is in that demo and she flips through different stations all the time. You should see her in my car with the Sirius. It's channel flipping overload for her. ;D

 

[RTibbs]

That seems someone broad to me on the 30% number. I could see 30% of all listening could come from that but I think there are certain stations like AC where you would expect to have more incidents in your daily routine to hear those stations in incidental listening situations.

 

[jabba17]

That seems someone broad to me on the 30% number. I could see 30% of all listening could come from that but I think there are certain stations like AC where you would expect to have more incidents in your daily routine to hear those stations in incidental listening situations.

I agree. You're not going to have, say, active rock/alt/CHR-R being used as background music as much as AC or CHR-M.

 

[KarsonWithaK]

Well, in that case, I might argue that more blue collar folks are allowed to have radio's on the job which could be better for the formats you mentioned (rock/alt/chr-r).

Well, I wouldn't really argue but you get the idea.

 

[jabba17]

Well, in that case, I might argue that more blue collar folks are allowed to have radio's on the job which could be better for the formats you mentioned (rock/alt/chr-r).

Well, I wouldn't really argue but you get the idea.

Good point.

Maybe that's why Patron got the big pop with PPM...but, conversely, what happened to Viva?

 

[Wildstyle K]

We need a station like Star*94 and Q100 here in Az. We do have a top 40 station, but they are rhythmic leaning top 40, so it's like 95.5 The Beat and a touch of Q100 mixed in. The other stations we have playing top 40 or hip hop are both like 95.5 The Beat and are currently fighting over the same slogan. Who will win in court? I don't know, but I think keeping "where hip hop lives" is more appropriate for one of them and the other should have kept "hitz & hip hop" and the top 40 one should've never let go of the "golden" slogan "Arizona's #1 hit music station" which is causing all this bickering.

As of right now, we currently have two stations using the #1 hit music station slogan....

We need a Q100, with all the top 40 alternative, not just 4 or 5 alternative hits, then we need another top 40 like Star*94 that's more alternative leaning. It's almost impossible when we have a rhythmic leaning top 40 station, and a best of the 80's 90's and today station that's close to Star*94 in many ways to fill the gap.

As far as a station like B98.5, I think we have two stations that are better than that, unless B98.5 has changed since the last time I lived in Atlanta. We also have a classic hip hop station that just replaced our all dance station.