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DOESN'T ANYONE ON THIS BOARD TALK ABOUT RATINGS ANYMORE?

S

SRP

I guess since djdan went away, the topic doesn't come up that often.

Kudos to Star - the station with the "washed up morning show" - for being on top three months in a row.

Now back to your regularly scheduled corporate radio bashing and insane programming theories discussions.
 
After being proven wrong with predictions about KPLZ, the armchair radio experts are hiding from the subject. At least some of us know who they were and recall quite clearly, their predictions.

I noticed that KMPS continues to regain its position against its now short-term competition. I don't see any comments from the competitor ex-PD anymore. Looks like KIRO gained a little more in demo too.

Could it be true, reality has finally overtaken the wild speculation? There is a God!
 
I noticed on the ratings chart, there was an entry for the KCMS stream. I haven't seen that before. I would think other stations would have higher streaming numbers than KCMS. Why is that station the only one on the chart with the streaming entry?
 
Ratings changed so much book to book in the diary days it was probably more noteworthy. Since PPM started two years ago there has been little change in numbers from what I can see 6+ and 25-54. Arbitron promised a more stable ratings environment and PPM has delivered on that. Still not sure if it measures "exposure" to radio or actual "listening" to radio, but it takes the guesswork out of it. Plus you can't "vote" for your favorite station as we saw in the diary days. There are some subtle changes. The kiro am sports show in the morning is now third in male demos and moved well ahead of kjr am, that is a big change. Both sports stations now beat kiro and komo news products in morning, that is a change. kmps has caught the wolf and the two stations are virtually tied in about 7th place. Biggest change recently is kube has moved back up to number one overall 18-34, along with the END. Movin's morning show has really jumped for some reason in the last few weeks is in first place 18-34. kiss is around 7th.

Stuff happens in specific demos but the big 6+ and 25-54 is stable as arbitron promised. That is surprising since virtually the entire panel of PPM meter holders have changed over. All new people with meters compared to 18 months ago, but the same stations are on top just different order. Not a bunch to post about I guess.
 
So, can someone explain how this PPM thing really works? In the diary days, every book involved a new sample. I understand that the PPM stays with a person for a long period of time. If this is the case, then the sample doesn't change, so it only monitors changes in listening habits of a small fixed sample of the population. Is that how it works?

Wondering in Aberdeen.
 
Arbitron PPM panel is unweighted and has a "statistically accurate" representation of the Seattle market (age, ethnic, zip code etc), plus 300 back-up panelists that can be activated immediately if someone drops out. Average panelist stays 2-3 months before getting tired of carrying the devise around, though some bail after a few weeks. They are booted after 18 months. About 15% of the panel turns over each month. The theory is if the panel is a proper representation of the market it will reflect real changes in the market. The diary was a new 3000 people every 90 days, but the trouble was they could never get a statistically accurate sample so if not enough 18-34 year olds turned in their diaries, the one's that did got double the vote, plus zip codes got under or over represented based on who filled turned in diaries on time and diaries were just best guesses on what someone was listening to, not actual exposure. Caused the wild swings that made advertisers force a new method that relied on a better (not perfect) statistical sample and encoded listening response, not what people thought they heard. Diary made for better posts as stations shot up and down at will. Most of the beef with the PPM is that it measures exposure to radio, but were people really listening?

The PPM has been here 18 months and the entire panel has now shifted over. Still limited change.
 
Is it just maybe ratings have gotten BORING lately?

Just an observation.....
 
radioguy123 said:
About 15% of the panel turns over each month.
Click to expand...

Not true. Arbitron said the average was going to be about 10% per month. In reality it's more like 6% a month.

Also another thing to keep in mind is that panelists tend to be in multi-panelist families where Arbitron can kill 3-5 birds with one stone (i.e. One woman 35-44, one male 35-44, one male teen 12-17, one female teen 12-17). Because of that, you'll see spikes of numbers and large decreases where you normally wouldn't. When this family all goes on vacation together, KRWM, for example, loses listening in many cells.

Arbitron claims to have about 1200 metered panelists in the market, but typically it's around 1050 in-tab. With such small #'s it's hard to claim equal market representation in the hundreds of different demo scenarios.
 
The arbitron PPM report card says 6% monthly turnover for "new" panels (first year or so) and 10% for mature panels (18 months or longer). Seattle, SF, LA have highest monthly turnover at close to 15%. Regardless, in 18 months the Seattle panel has completely changed over yet ratings remain unchanged. (While statistically accurate it would be nice to have more panelists and more in each demo. Limited panelists to one per household would also make sense) Arbitron has 1050-1200 metered households. Does anyone know how that compares to Neilson households for TV? I have heard that is even lower.

In the end we are stuck with this system as we were with Diaries, though I have read Neilson may compete against Arbitron someday. Might be good for everyone if they did.
 
Well, maybe telephone methodology wasn't so bad after all. Dairies make for good fiction, with the lucky recipients of a couple of dollars trying to figure out what to put down at the end of the week. PPMs follow a family around picking up whatever happens to be in hearing range. At least with the phone, you can ask "what station are you listening to right now?" and "what's your favorite station".

So if the PPM sample size is 3,000, that's one tenth of one percent of the population... not statistically good enough in the best case scenario, especially when it's not a simple "who are you voting for" answer, but consists of dozens of possible stations.

Eastlan's telephone ratings get close to 1% of population.
 
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