Hannity Out at WBEN

[tbolt909]

A tiny sample that is not representative of the whole population is simply idle conversation.

I could mix leaves of plants from my backyard, drink them and think I was immune from COVID, too.

Neither process is scientific. And statistics is a science... a unique one, in fact as it is the only science where error is both permissible and calculable.

Have you ever seen a real diary? They are daily logs of listening by daypart and hour.

And Nielsen calls to confirm receipt. They call after the first day. They call after the weekend. They call to make sure it is filled and returned.

Yes, they use it less. But in 18-34, radio is only used about 2% less on a cume basis than by 55 and over.

A lot has changed, including the loss of passion for radio and the distaste for jocks and the like by younger demos but radio is still the greatest reach medium in the US.

The point was that someone filling out a diary may not actually be listening. They are SAYING they listen at those times. It depends on who fills it out. Stations sometimes get credit due to longevity or memory. PPM is probably more accurate, but is has flaws as well.

Arbitron used to offer McDonald's coupons hoping it would entice people to fill out diaries. If Buddy is asking random people about Radio, maybe it has some value to him. You are correct about the general loss of passion for Radio...

 

[CTListener]

Arbitron used to offer McDonald's coupons hoping it would entice people to fill out diaries.

Arbitron enclosed two crisp $1 bills when it recruited me for a week of diary keeping. Unfortunately, that week coincided with an out-of-state vacation, so all I sent back was what I listened to in the car while in the Hartford area on part of the first and last days. Several years later, I was recruited again and replied that yes, I'd like to participate, but I guess I didn't make the cut demographically because I never heard back.

 

[davideduardo]

The point was that someone filling out a diary may not actually be listening. They are SAYING they listen at those times. It depends on who fills it out. Stations sometimes get credit due to longevity or memory. PPM is probably more accurate, but is has flaws as well.

Any survey technique has "flaws" as it is an effort to take a small sample of a large group and projecting it mathematically into the total universe being studied. That is why all surveys and polls have a margin of error.

In most consumer fields, a small error is not critical. If a station has a 4.2 or 4.4 or a 3.9 it is going to get on the same buys, and all the top measured stations can do well. That's different from an election poll, where there is only one winner and everyone else gets nothing. And this is why polls get a "bad name" in that close elections often show the polls to be "wrong".

No, people generally do not put additional listening in a diary. They do "round" and say "9 AM to 10AM" while the people meter may show "9:12 to 9:47". In the diary, that is 4 quarter hours. In the PPM, it is 2. But in all my visits to Beltsville, Laurel and Columbia, including many of the "Consultant Fly-In" sessions and reviews of millions of diaries, I never heard any comments about people saying they listened more than actual listening.

Yes, there are inaccuracies. I have seen many. Arbitron established a whole series of validation procedures, including call-backs for clarification.

An example I have cited before was something I saw when reviewing diaries for WIND in Chicago, which had been a Spanish language station for nearly a decade at the time. The diary entry was for the morning show talent on WGN but with the call letters of WIND. Several people made the same mistake... all those entries were over 70, and they had been "branded" with a former station of a present talent. Arbitron split the entry between WGN and WIND in a process called ascription. Not perfect, but it minimizes errors and causes them to have little impact on the overall results.

By the way, I was not a constant adoring fan of the diary. I was on a list on the wall of the head of diary review in Columbia of programmers and consultants who had gotten books reissued from finding ascription errors; I got four books reissued and up until recently, was the only one who ever got a trend report reissued.

Arbitron used to offer McDonald's coupons hoping it would entice people to fill out diaries. If Buddy is asking random people about Radio, maybe it has some value to him. You are correct about the general loss of passion for Radio...

I've been involved with Arbitron and Nielsen for decades. I did my first diary review in Beltsville in 1970 and did my last one in Columbia just before Nielsen moved the processing to Florida.

I never saw coupons sent with recruit packets. They would send different amounts of money depending on the difficulty in recruiting different demos.

In the PPM, you can earn a variety of things based on a residential group (family or other) being compliant, staying on the panel, finishing the first month, etc.

Of course, I ran a research division of a major broadcaster for a decade, so perhaps I have greater inside knowledge of how ratings are actually done...

 

[davideduardo]

If you do the right campaign, message , frequency in radio , it will work, but if their were 100 people listening 5 years ago, there are 70 today.

In the PPM markets, persons using radio (called PUR) in 2005 (pre-PPM) was around 18 to 20 depending on the market. This meant that on average, 6 AM to Midnight, M-S, about one out of every 20 people was listening. But 94 out of every 100 listened at some time during the week.

Just pre-virus, in PPM markets, the PUR is around 7 people out of every are listening on average. And 89 out of every 100 listen at least once a week.

In the diary, the PUR today is higher because people round listening spans when the write in the diary and that creates the appearance of higher average listening levels.

 

[four4rock]

I pretend I am from out of town, and what radio station they listen too. Most say “ I don’t listen to radio”. Try it your self and see what happens

Please understand, I realize people listen to radio. That’s why I bought a station. But I also understood then and now that people listen to a lot of other things too. I am not saying radio is dead. But it is going that way.

Which is the exact reason I have a successful ad agency. We put together campaigns based on client goals. Sometimes it includes WECK, sometimes it includes other stations, and not WECK. Often it includes TV. I can buy an average quarter hour of 30,000 viewers on broadcast TV for $200 a spot. It is far more cost effective than most radio. In WECKS best daypart, we have an average quarter hour of 5500 listeners. For comparison, WBEN in that same time frame has about 8500. However, WECK is priced 10x less.

Younger people are not preferring radio as their hot media for sure. That’s why I picked an oldies format.

In my opinion, my agency has unlimited growth potential. WECK has finite growth potential, as do the other radio stations.

My agency has some of the biggest clients in Buffalo, who need more than just WECK. That is why leaving ENTERCOM was so great for me. For years, my clients were asking me, “can you buy my tv, can you buy my other radio, can you buy billboards”?

Now we do all of that. If it’s a 50 plus buy, we usually buy WECK, WBEN AND WHTT. If it is a younger buy, our strategy changes and we buy pandora, or OTT television or podcasts.

It all depends. By the way, I am not just saying radio listenership has gone down, so has TV, print. Even billboard viewing has gone down during this covid era.

I do what is best for my client. It has worked for me for 40 years.

Props to all of this... but, in particular... "I do what is best for my client." Isn't that the crux of where OTA radio has gone astray(?). Or, is it that OTA radio has mis-identified "client"(?).

 

[TheBigA]

Isn't that the crux of where OTA radio has gone astray(?). Or, is it that OTA radio has mis-identified "client"(?).

Who do you think the "client" is? How much do you pay for radio?

 

[four4rock]

Who do you think the "client" is? How much do you pay for radio?

I can only have an (admittedly moderately informed) opinion. I suspect there could be at least two "clients." One being the traditional so-to-speak client... that of a traditional advertiser that purchases time/service from the radio entity (directly or indirectly). Then, there is another "client" (i.e. a user of the service)... that of the traditional "audience/listener." Many may suggest that the audience members are not "clients" because they do not directly exchange cash for the service. I do not happen to believe that direct payment is integral with being a client. For example, for many/most a doctor visit is not paid directly, but surely most patients would consider themselves the client of the physician... and, I believe most physician would reciprocate that mindset. They are indirectly compensated by the patient. Much like a radio entity is indirectly compensated by the traditional audience.

As for how much do I pay for radio (assuming you mean OTA stuff), my answer would be "a speculated sufficient amount" since the OTA services of which I make use continue to operate.

 

[frankberry]

The client is the advertiser. The product that the station sells is you, dear listener.

 

[TheBigA]

As for how much do I pay for radio (assuming you mean OTA stuff), my answer would be "a speculated sufficient amount" since the OTA services of which I make use continue to operate.

Listeners have an ad hoc relationship to radio. They show up, and its there. Or they don't. There's no actual transaction. No contract. The only listeners who have a client-type relationship with radio are the ones with diaries. Their intermediary is Nielsen. Even a public library requires you to have a card to take out books. Not so with radio.

 

[four4rock]

The client is the advertiser. The product that the station sells is you, dear listener.

Hmmmm. OK. Let's think about this... Is not an OTA service attempting (indeed, even actively competing) to get "me" - the sought after listener/audience - to use it's service/product? Are they not "selling" to get "me" to buy onto their roster/inventory of listeners/audience? If the answer is "no", then I stand corrected. However, if the answer is anything affirmative, then I stand by my opinion that the listener/audience is most assuredly a "client" (i.e. user) of the service. The direct exchange of money is not material to the status of "client". But, if pressed, the cash flows to the radio entity from listeners/audience through the "other" client (ad agency, retailer, etc). So, even if the exchange of money is held to be imperative, it does - in fact - occur.

 

[TheBigA]

Hmmmm. OK. Let's think about this... Is not an OTA service attempting (indeed, even actively competing) to get "me" - the sought after listener/audience - to use it's service/product?

Only if you have a Nielsen diary. If you don't, then you don't get counted. But we don't know who has the diary. So it's like throwing grass seed. Some of it takes root, some of it doesn't. That's why it's called broadcasting. It's very indirect. And radio stations don't really know if the ads have any effect either. The advertisers know.

 

[davideduardo]

Hmmmm. OK. Let's think about this... Is not an OTA service attempting (indeed, even actively competing) to get "me" - the sought after listener/audience - to use it's service/product? Are they not "selling" to get "me" to buy onto their roster/inventory of listeners/audience? If the answer is "no", then I stand corrected. However, if the answer is anything affirmative, then I stand by my opinion that the listener/audience is most assuredly a "client" (i.e. user) of the service. The direct exchange of money is not material to the status of "client". But, if pressed, the cash flows to the radio entity from listeners/audience through the "other" client (ad agency, retailer, etc). So, even if the exchange of money is held to be imperative, it does - in fact - occur.

Commercial radio and TV are examples of bi-modal marketing where the consumer is not the user of the product.

The consumer, who pays to sustain the business, does not use the station. The user, does not pay for the service.

Another example of bimodal products is life insurance. An employed family head buys it so that if they die, the rest of the family will have money. Again, the consumer is not the user.

The life insurance company tries hard to make the benefits attractive so that the buyer will feel good about taking care of their family. In radio, the station tries to make programming attractive to a large audience so that advertisers will be happy.

 

[four4rock]

Commercial radio and TV are examples of bi-modal marketing where the consumer is not the user of the product.

The consumer, who pays to sustain the business, does not use the station. The user, does not pay for the service.

Another example of bimodal products is life insurance. An employed family head buys it so that if they die, the rest of the family will have money. Again, the consumer is not the user.

The life insurance company tries hard to make the benefits attractive so that the buyer will feel good about taking care of their family. In radio, the station tries to make programming attractive to a large audience so that advertisers will be happy.

"The consumer, who pays to sustain the business, does not use the station." When a listener is seeking news (for example)... and that listener elects to obtain that news from a radio station... you're saying that the listener is not using the station to satisfy a need/want. Do I also understand that radio stations do not market to listeners to encourage them to make use of their product/service?

It seems (unless I'm completely misunderstanding the responses), OTA radio considers the listener/audience to be secondary - if not tertiary - importance to the enterprise. If so, it's my opinion that the enterprises have dug their own grave... and deserve whatever they get. Best of luck. Peace.

 

[TheBigA]

If so, it's my opinion that the enterprises have dug their own grave... and deserve whatever they get. Best of luck. Peace.

That's your interpretation. Radio stations are playing with the cards they get dealt. In a way, it's a hand they can't win. They have to operate according to someone else's rules. The government tells us what we can and can't do. Consider non-commercial radio stations can't prevent non-members from hearing their station. So you end up with over 90% of WBFO's listeners getting the signal without paying for it. How is that fair? Is that any way to run a business? No.

 

[davideduardo]

It seems (unless I'm completely misunderstanding the responses), OTA radio considers the listener/audience to be secondary - if not tertiary - importance to the enterprise. If so, it's my opinion that the enterprises have dug their own grave... and deserve whatever they get. Best of luck. Peace.

Commercial radio stations are in business to make a profit. Listeners are an ingredient in making a product that advertisers will buy. If the station has enough listeners, it can be profitable.

The first station I built and owned got no advertisers for its first 6 months on the air. None. It had a "new" format for the market, and advertisers did not like it or appreciate it. We were less than 60 days from having to give up and close. But then I got a box from the market's largest ad agency with ETs and broadcast orders for almost every account they had. The agency had done its own survey, and found we were #1... and significantly so. All of a sudden we had Coca-Cola and the biggest airline and cosmetics and detergents all on the air.

Listeners alone did not sustain us for 6 months. We had lots of them, it turned out. We only became a profitable sustainable business once we had advertisers.

The client is the advertiser. The user is the listener. The more users we have, the more advertisers we get and the higher rates can go.

I built a damned good radio station... good enough to be #1 in a market with over 30 full signal local stations. My initial focus was to get a big audience, but to be able to sustain that I had to have paying advertisers. Because I did not have advertisers for half a year, I almost went broke and almost lost my station. Now, please, tell me who is the customer here?

 

[four4rock]

Commercial radio stations are in business to make a profit. Listeners are an ingredient in making a product that advertisers will buy. If the station has enough listeners, it can be profitable.

The first station I built and owned got no advertisers for its first 6 months on the air. None. It had a "new" format for the market, and advertisers did not like it or appreciate it. We were less than 60 days from having to give up and close. But then I got a box from the market's largest ad agency with ETs and broadcast orders for almost every account they had. The agency had done its own survey, and found we were #1... and significantly so. All of a sudden we had Coca-Cola and the biggest airline and cosmetics and detergents all on the air.

Listeners alone did not sustain us for 6 months. We had lots of them, it turned out. We only became a profitable sustainable business once we had advertisers.

The client is the advertiser. The user is the listener. The more users we have, the more advertisers we get and the higher rates can go.

I built a damned good radio station... good enough to be #1 in a market with over 30 full signal local stations. My initial focus was to get a big audience, but to be able to sustain that I had to have paying advertisers. Because I did not have advertisers for half a year, I almost went broke and almost lost my station. Now, please, tell me who is the customer here?

Customer/client for air time = Advertiser.

Customer/client for programming/content = Listener/audience.

Did you not "sell" to the listener/audience... i.e. Put your message in front of them? Tell them great things about the product. Tell them where they could obtain the product. "Ask" them to utilize the product. Try to make the product as attractive as practical to them. And all the other things that 'selling' encompasses. Effectively, try to fill their need/want with something that you could offer. Possibly, you did none of that(?). But if you did, you were 'selling' (to a customer). Your compensation was the listeners/audiences time... maybe devotion... and, hopefully, their patronage of the respective advertiser(s). Both were your customer.

 

[b-turner]

You're very wrong on your statement. My job as selling advertising is not to sell product nor to convince listeners to buy products or services. That is the job of the advertiser who has and always will control the content of the message. The radio station is like the concert hall. Depending who is on stage, they make money. I don't dictate the players, I just sell them the space to play.

 

[davideduardo]

Customer/client for air time = Advertiser.

Customer/client for programming/content = Listener/audience.

Did you not "sell" to the listener/audience... i.e. Put your message in front of them? Tell them great things about the product. Tell them where they could obtain the product. "Ask" them to utilize the product. Try to make the product as attractive as practical to them. And all the other things that 'selling' encompasses. Effectively, try to fill their need/want with something that you could offer. Possibly, you did none of that(?). But if you did, you were 'selling' (to a customer). Your compensation was the listeners/audiences time... maybe devotion... and, hopefully, their patronage of the respective advertiser(s). Both were your customer.

I did not "sell" to listeners. I did not do any outside promotion as I had no budget for print advertising and there was no commercial TV and no legal outdoor.

And the listeners did not pay me anything. They were not "sold" anything. They were my product. Just as a coffee roaster has people searching for the best beans at the best price, I was "searching" for the most listeners in the category that advertisers looked for: Upper income, 18 to 35 years old.

I produced radically different programming that had never been heard in the market... indeed, in the whole nation... before. I was just an 18-year-old kid with a new radio station in a very over-radioed market of about one million persons.

And I did not, don't and never did guarantee the effectiveness of advertising. Radio is a channel between advertisers and consumers. Advertisers seek effective channels, but then the product and the message about it have to resonate with consumers. A radio station can't influence that in any way.

 

[davideduardo]

You're very wrong on your statement. My job as selling advertising is not to sell product nor to convince listeners to buy products or services. That is the job of the advertiser who has and always will control the content of the message. The radio station is like the concert hall. Depending who is on stage, they make money. I don't dictate the players, I just sell them the space to play.

I like the stadium or venue analogy. We, in radio, are the stage. The stage can be bare, with nobody in the seats. It can have a few people if there is a limited act on stage, or it can be full if the act is fantastically popular. But the chairs and the stage don't influence seat sales... the artist performing does.

The artist is the product, not the venue. The venue is the channel, like radio. Consumers buy tickets to see Cardi B (had to get that in) and not to see your venue. The venue is a medium that allows you to see artists.

 

[davideduardo]

Customer/client for programming/content = Listener/audience.

Oxford Dictionary: "Customer: A person who buys goods or services from a shop or business".

Listeners do not pay for OTA radio. They are not customers.

Listeners pay for Sirius/XM or the paid streams. They are customers there.

Even in the gray area of listener supported stations, listeners don't "buy" anything since they can listen for free. They contribute to the concept, not to the actual daily broadcasts.