IF Buffalo-Niagara Falls and Rochester were PPM markets, it's quite likely that a significant difference would be evident in the ratings, similar to what happened to the television stations when Nielsen went to meters. Channel 7, the long-professed Buffalo market local news leader was shown to be far less dominant after the market became metered. Viewers often told interviewers or wrote in their diaries that they viewed Channel 7 Eyewitness News (WKBW-TV), when in fact the meters revealed that Channel 4 (WIVB-TV) had a significantly larger number of viewers than revealed in diaries or follow-up interviews. These days, Channel 7 has a difficult time beating Judge Judy.
Buffalo radio PPM would likely reveal, as it has in countless other once-diary markets, that legacy stations have significantly different (lower) and shorter listening patterns; that listeners punch around, and that commercial breaks, tiresome DJ bits and unfavorable (burned out and unfamiliar) songs motivate listeners to let their fingers do the walking. Programmers in PPM markets can show their air talent exactly when listeners started to head for the exits. Smart air talent can use the information to improve their presentation and content. You can refine and reel-in an undisciplined air talent. The same can't be said for an eight minute -twelve unit commercial break, no matter how creative the commercials might be. There's always one car dealer, vape merchant or carpet store that drives listeners away. A veteran, major market PD who ran a Howard Stern in the Morning, Classic Rock All Day operation once professed that if PPM were as pervasive when Stern was generating big diary ratings on OTA radio, PPM would have revealed that he actually had half the audience that diary method markets indicated. Stern often ran ten minute commercial breaks, especially in hours when his interviews and bits exceeded their limit. In many cases, PPM would have revealed that his lengthy bits and extended commercial breaks would have generated a decline in the number of listeners. Stern's genius however, often brought these listeners back because they were dedicated and couldn't get anything else like him elsewhere. These days Stern wannabees are numerous and Stern no longer does do the butt-bongo-bingo routine now that he's had his head examined and has learned to accept the fact that he was a misogynistic creep all those years.
As someone who was part of the development of the PPM, going back to 2002-2003 in Philadelphia and then to the further tests in the several years prior to "going official" in 2008 in Houston, I'd say that most of your observations are incorrect.
What was noted was:
1. Stations that had a low cume and a narrow cume, but huge TSL were hurt in the PPM, with things like smooth jazz/soft jazz (under a variety of names) actually having much lower TSL and no expanded cume.
2. Many talk formats ended up having much lower TSL and not much more cume. As a foreground format, those who did listen remembered it. But there is not much secondary listening, and that is where the PPM changed overall levels per station.
3. Some "secondary" formats benefited, as they just never got written in the diary. I was involved with a number of stations that had a "my second choice station" format... in LA, cume for that format went from around 700,000 to 1.5 million because the PPM detected what the diarykeepers forgot.
3. Secondary contemporary music formats added lots of cume that got forgotten in the diary. Many diary participants remembered their favorite stations, but not the secondary ones.
4. Radio overall lost over 1/3 of the time spent listening when the PPM rolled out. While dairy keepers put in rounded hours and half hours and did not register breaks for coffee, the bathroom, phone calls, taking kids to the bus stop, etc., the PPM "deducted" that time.
5. I agree that Stern would have done worse in the PPM as he had narrow cume, and listeners just wrote down "6 AM to 10" no matter what. In the PPM, I believe he would have not been first or second in big markets... he would have been nearer 10th. Again, that is because there was no "phantom cume" that the PPM recognized but the diary often did not show.
6. Few if any stations showed lower cume in the PPM. The difference is that listeners did not write in the diary stations that were not their couple of favorites, so those secondary ones got no diary mention. Diaries generally showed two to three stations, PPM shows six to seven.
