BOSTON ARBITRON PPM RATINGS RELEASED: JULY 2010

[pjc1961]

Boston Ratings Grid here.

The July 2010 survey period is from Thu. 6/24/10-Wed. 7/21/10. The next survey period is for August 2010 running from Thu. 7/22/10-Wed. 8/18/10 with the publicly released age 6+ overall data available on Monday 9/13/10.

 

[raccoonradio]

Also at http://www.******************/ratings.asp?market=13

WRKO under 3--lowest ratings in awhile? Looking up at TKK. WXKS-A (what's the Rush,
Limbaugh?) steady/low but still no sign
of progtalker WWZN (see other post: back to sports???)
WKLB country tied for fourth!

Wonder how Marley Channing, er, Charley Manning doing on RKO?

 

[Laurence Glavin]

WGBH-FM 89.7 going down, down, down. A decline also on WCRB-FM 99.5. During the diary days, classical KING-FM declined during the summer months. Their listenership probably went to sunny climes to load up on vitamin D to get them through the cloudy season(s). It's possible that some of the current WCRB listeners have gone away from the signal to the Berkshires, the Cape of Cod or Maine (where a 99.5 in the eastern White Mountains pops in).

 

[newhampshiredude]

Also at http://www.******************/ratings.asp?market=13

WRKO under 3--lowest ratings in awhile? Looking up at TKK. WXKS-A (what's the Rush,
Limbaugh?) steady/low but still no sign
of progtalker WWZN (see other post: back to sports???)
WKLB country tied for fourth!

Wonder how Marley Channing, er, Charley Manning doing on RKO?

I think that some of WRKO's lower ratings for July have to do with Howie Carr being gone for two weeks and Laura Ingraham not being on some days due to her book tour. Also, Tom and Todd have not both been there every morning in July due to vacations. WRKO's ratings will most likely increase with the upcoming midterm elections this fall.

 

[ArtSpooner]

Would someone, please take pity on me and explain what these ratings numbers mean? To quote somebody ( I can't remember who), "explain it to me like I was a five year old". What does the % indicate and what does the cume indicate. In this current listing, WMJX and WKLB both have %s of 5.1, yet one has a cume of 1,150,400 and the other 649,000.

 

[JIBGUY]

The station with 11,500,400 people per week cume has their audience listening for a shorter period of time than the station with 649,000 cume. Usually the difference in cume is not as great as this example, but in this case it is. That station having 649,000 persons per week does a very good job of holding their audience for a long time, likely due to a more extensive & less-repeat playlist.

 

[JIBGUY]

additional thought: -or the station holding on to its audience the best may not be due to a more extensive playlist, but rather the fact that many of it audience (and People Meters) are "trapped" into listening all day at work because that's the station that is in the overhead ceiling speakers at work. In this common case, the People Meter does NOT record whether a person LIKES what he/she is hearing.

 

[ArtSpooner]

I guess I need it explained like I was three year old. How can you tell, from that chart, how long the audience is listening? What does the % represent......percentage of the audience? Which is the more important number......% or cume?

 

[KarsonWithaK]

Which is the more important number......% or cume?

It depends on which makes EEI look better. ;D

 

[mescutia]

WGBH-FM 89.7 going down, down, down. A decline also on WCRB-FM 99.5. During the diary days, classical KING-FM declined during the summer months. Their listenership probably went to sunny climes to load up on vitamin D to get them through the cloudy season(s). It's possible that some of the current WCRB listeners have gone away from the signal to the Berkshires, the Cape of Cod or Maine (where a 99.5 in the eastern White Mountains pops in).

Meanwhile, WBUR continues to wipe the floor with WGBH and generally beats every talk or news/talk station except WBZ-AM.

 

[4CX1000A]

I guess I need it explained like I was three year old. How can you tell, from that chart, how long the audience is listening? What does the % represent......percentage of the audience? Which is the more important number......% or cume?

There are two basic dimensions to radio listening: how many different people tune in, and how long they stay tuned. The first is cumulative audience, or "cume". The second is average time spent listening, or "TSL".

The percentages are average quarter-hour shares, that is, what percentage of the total radio audience is listening to a given station during an average quarter hour. It's related to cume and TSL thus:

[(Quarter-Hours in a time period) x (AQH Persons)] / Cume Audience = TSL

AQH persons is the same thing as share, but expressed as a number of persons rather than a percentage of the whole. It's been a while since I've seen an Arbitron report, but I think in the Boston market one percent is somewhere between three and four thousand persons.

While there are a few exceptions -- the classic WINS "give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world" news format comes to mind -- most stations try to maximize TSL, as it's generally easier to keep someone tuned in than to get new people to tune in,

A former colleague of mine once told me there's little a programmer can do to reach someone who isn't already listening. For that you need marketing.

See http://www.arbitron.com/radio_stations/tradeterms.htm for more.

 

[ArtSpooner]

I guess I need it explained like I was three year old. How can you tell, from that chart, how long the audience is listening? What does the % represent......percentage of the audience? Which is the more important number......% or cume?

There are two basic dimensions to radio listening: how many different people tune in, and how long they stay tuned. The first is cumulative audience, or "cume". The second is average time spent listening, or "TSL".

The percentages are average quarter-hour shares, that is, what percentage of the total radio audience is listening to a given station during an average quarter hour. It's related to cume and TSL thus:

[(Quarter-Hours in a time period) x (AQH Persons)] / Cume Audience = TSL

AQH persons is the same thing as share, but expressed as a number of persons rather than a percentage of the whole. It's been a while since I've seen an Arbitron report, but I think in the Boston market one percent is somewhere between three and four thousand persons.

While there are a few exceptions -- the classic WINS "give us 22 minutes, we'll give you the world" news format comes to mind -- most stations try to maximize TSL, as it's generally easier to keep someone tuned in than to get new people to tune in,

A former colleague of mine once told me there's little a programmer can do to reach someone who isn't already listening. For that you need marketing.

See http://www.arbitron.com/radio_stations/tradeterms.htm for more.

Thank you very much. That link was also excellent.