RadioPhillyFan said:
No, no and no.
Wherever you're getting your facts from, they're not right...
DVSA... Check it. I don't want to argue this.
Nielsen and Arbitron get their figures from "processors" of the US Census and ACS data such as Geoscape and Claritas. Such firms take the raw population data from the Census Bureau and the annual American Community Survey (done by the Census Bureau, but a poll and not a census) and combine it with other data, such as motor vehicle registrations, economic indicators, etc., to create information of value to marketers.
The Claritas and Geoscape projections were so accurate that the 2010 estimates, available in 2010, were "right on" and within even the error factor (there is no "margin of error" per se in a census) of the US Census, which did not get full release for another year and a half.
Remember, the Census is a mandate of the core document of our democracy, and was so mandated to insure equal representation in that democracy. The Census is not supposed to be either a marketing tool or a service to hucksterism or boosterism. So that is why Census data has to be processed for marketing purposes.
I'll give you an example, and an LA one, that shows some of the exceptions in the market definitions vs. urban areas and their apparent consolidation.
The LA radio market is LA county and Orange county. You would never be able to guess when you left the LA market and entered the Riverside San Bernardino market, though. The area is densely populated and without looking at signs, apparently never "ends."
But, long ago, the Inland Empire (parts of riverside and san bernardino counties) market was established, and so was the LA market... at a time when Hooper and others used "city and suburb" models for market definition. As most AM stations did not overlap, the distinction was very clear.
Eventually, Arbitron came along, and the LA market became the whole county, and later it added Orange county, too. Why was Orange county added? Because it had grown, had few and weak media outlets and most listening was to LA stations. But the final step was having the subscribers vote on consolidating the two counties. The vote passed.
The Riverside and San Bernardino counties are two of the largest in the US... each being larger than Delaware, for example. They contain 3 metros, the IE, Victorville and Palm Springs... and there are parts that are not in any of those three. One part, from Ontario to Rancho Cucamonga, and containing enough people to be a significant rated market of its own, is not in either LA or the IE ratings... because neither market's subscribers wants the area due to "dilution" of ratings. So nearly a million people are unmeasured....
And years ago, the LA and IE subscribers voted whether to combine the IE and LA in one massive market that would rival NY in population. They voted no.
But in TV, the Ventura, IE and LA markets are one... because TV coverage is different than average radio coverage due to both signal and cable coverage. The markets are defined by the media being measured.
Up till 1981, Miami and Ft. Lauderdale (Dade and Broward counties) were separate markets. The broadcasters there voted to combine the two into the current Miami MSA, two counties. The radio listening permitted the combination, broadcasters approved and it was done.
Ah, and here is another... the Puerto Rico Arbitron market (Market 14) actually contains 5 separate Census Bureau Metros... so, in the opposite direction, Arbitron markets may be larger than the Census definitions, too.
So it does not matter what other organizations consider to be the Philadelphia metro. Or the Boise metro. Or the San Juan metro. What matters is how Arbitron and its subscribers define the metro to their mutual advantage.
The Philly radio market and all others are defined by Arbitron but the population data comes from the Census, updated by ACS and processed by Claritas. Whether you agree is irrelevant, unless you buy a radio station, subscribe to Arbitron and propose changing the metro... in the meantime, you are an outsider looking in and have to recognize the way markets are defined
for radio.
