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February PPM Ratings are out . . .
- Thread starter bobbybeth
- Start date
Amazing that the sports stations in Atlanta don't do any better. Are they that bad? I love listening to Paul Finebaum in Birmingham on WJOX. I'm just curious as to why sports doesn't do any better in Atlanta where there are pro teams in all the major sports.
WJOX is a top 3 station in Birmingham.
WJOX is a top 3 station in Birmingham.
bobbybeth said:
The stations are good. In fact the syndicated “Two Live Stews” came out of WQXI. The real problem with sports in Atlanta is the lack of life long fans. A huge percentage of folks in the Atlanta market are transplants from somewhere else, and usually keep their loyalties to the team “they grew up with”. The largest Pittsburgh Stealer fan club outside of Pennsylvania is in Atlanta. During the playoff game you could hear a lot of Packer fans cheering in the GA Dome! If you are a fan of several out of state college football teams you can get “vanity” license plates with you’re out of state college logo on it. In Birmingham AL you have Tide, Auburn and UAB to some extent life long (multiple generations often) loyal fans. Local segments of a sport station tend to feature the local teams which do not carry the following of the “locals” in Atlanta. The Braves use to have a following when on the road thanks to TBS’s nation wide satellite signal. Still when you came to a game in Atlanta there often would be large number of fans for the visiting team. During the Cowboys nationwide hype in the 1960’s & 1970’s when CBS stood for the Cowboy Broadcasting System and every Dallas game was on the network nationwide, (except when they had carry a local market's team's game) only the Cowboys sold out with native Texans supporting “their” team.
Also these stations 680 and 790 do not cover the majority of the market after sundown or winter mornings.
Best PPM no's ever for Star 94, as Lindy's work is clearly taking hold. Interestingly, Q100 is not suffering at all.
Hot 107.9 is also reaching its highest PPM numbers ever without hurting V-103.
Atlanta's Greatest Hits saw some pick up for the first time since the switch. And the Regular Guys saw some lift for the first time in months.
El Patron had its worst numbers ever in PPM land by a long shot.
Will provide 25-54, 18-34 rankings later.
Hot 107.9 is also reaching its highest PPM numbers ever without hurting V-103.
Atlanta's Greatest Hits saw some pick up for the first time since the switch. And the Regular Guys saw some lift for the first time in months.
El Patron had its worst numbers ever in PPM land by a long shot.
Will provide 25-54, 18-34 rankings later.
N
Nyte Ryder
Guest
bobbybeth said:
Flip over to 93.7 and let us know what you hear. Should sound like Sportstalk.
R
RadioNerd78
Guest
They mention 93.7FM every time they come into, out of breaks, etc. it's on the website as well.
Looking at Birmingham...also seems like there is a lack of choice if you aren't an Urban or Country listener...only 1 rock station on their list of ratings. That basically pushes most men to talk formats, I would guess. Alot more choice in Atlanta, which is surprising considering Atlanta has alot fewer choices than many markets its size. Pluse - the hatred between Auburn and Alabama fans is so pervasive, it has to help.
Looking at Birmingham...also seems like there is a lack of choice if you aren't an Urban or Country listener...only 1 rock station on their list of ratings. That basically pushes most men to talk formats, I would guess. Alot more choice in Atlanta, which is surprising considering Atlanta has alot fewer choices than many markets its size. Pluse - the hatred between Auburn and Alabama fans is so pervasive, it has to help.
Honestly, I don't think Atlanta (in general) is a very sports-oriented city - I remember growing up in Boston where everyone watched Red Sox games, wore Red Sox clothing, and even groomed themselves to look like baseball players lol - to put it bluntly, it's like two different worlds
RadioNerd78 said:
I wouldn't say that about urban formats in Birmingham. It's a very disjointed market for the urban format compared to most cities with large black populations as the majority of the stations target 35+ rather than the entire 18-49 demographic like V-103 does here in Atlanta. Also it's still a diary market where the true ratings for the stations aren't revealed because most still fill the books out of habit rather than actual listenership.
I'm very interested to find out exactly how ppm data recordings work and how it's done, nationwide. Is the data as accurate and cheat proof as... lets say, an electric kilowatt hours meter? Is the ppm meter a type of object that cannot be manipulated?
J
JoshuaC
Guest
KDM 7000 said:
A signal is embedded into the air feed, which is then picked up by a PPM (a specially designed receiver about the size of an old pager) and recorded in terms of how much time Station "X" is listened to. That data is then transmitted (when it was described to me the transmit mechanism was a modem on a phone line, although I've heard that it may be wireless capable now) to Arbirtron where the numbers are crunched.
The theory is that the rating system is more based on actual TSL rather than brand loyalty. On paper, it does make a lot of sense. In practice...well, it gets really obvious how much station formating and promotion was based on building brand loyalty (for diary users) and not necessarily consistant listenership.
As for whether or not it can be "cheated?" Well...anything can be cheated if you try hard enough, but I know that there are a supposedly lot of systems in place [in the PPM device] to protect against people trying to "fake it" by, for instance, sitting a PPM device in front of a radio for hours. I guess there's some sort of gyro in it that registers motion and if it's still for a long enough time it voids the readings. I'm not 100% certain of all that sort of stuff...I know that at the S.B.E. meeting in Atlanta a couple years back the GATech crew kept throwing scenarios for cheating the system to the Arbitron reps and the rep had answers ready to go for pretty much each trick they came up with.
The sampling size for PPM is SIGNIFICANTLY smaller than it was with diaries, but the sampling length is longer (with people signing on to wear these meters for up to a 2 year span). I don't know if I buy that math in practice...time will tell, I guess.
Diaries essentially measure interest, not necessarily exposure. Meters measure exposure, not necessarily interest. Adjustments to content and presentation reflect how this change is perceived by the program people.
The system seems fairly robust, although anything you can lock,I can (eventually) unlock.
The system seems fairly robust, although anything you can lock,I can (eventually) unlock.
Not only are people in the panel longer, but far more hours of listening are measured by PPM versus the diary.
How does a PPM unit "hear" when the person has on a earplug style headset?
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