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Interesting column about AM radio. "Bad programming ruining AM, not audio quality".

ted chittenden said:
The question would then become has the arrival of the Internet and its myriad of radio choices changed anything in that location. I don't know, but I do suspect that Internet radio listening is not as widespread in Redfield, SD, than say, San Francisco, CA. That will most likely change sooner rather than later but I think that, for now, Ron's advice about programming AM stations might be applicable in his and other small towns that don't have a lot of other available options.
Click to expand...
Smaller markets may have even more web-based listening than big ones. I am in a sub-100 ranked market and can't listen to any local station. Too many ads, badly written ads, repetitive liners or weak local "talent", horrible horizontal and vertical music scheduling... and overall just unlistenable.
 
davideduardo said:
Radio, in Y2K, cumed about 94% of the population. Today, the PUMM figure for most markets is in the high 80% region
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that changed from PUR to PUMM. Along the way, radio became combined with other stuff that makes that number appear more optimistic than what I'm seeing. I saw PUMM numbers dropping almost in half between 2018 and 2022. That's not good. Of course in the middle of that was covid. But I don't think use of measured media has improved. Here's one article from a few years ago:

radioink.com

Why Declining PUMM Levels Keep Me Up At Night - Radio Ink

(By Buzz Knight) Back in 2010, when Arbitron (now Nielsen) introduced a new era in radio ratings - the Portable People Meter Service it also introduced another term that the industry needed to follow: PUMM.
radioink.com radioink.com
 
TheBigA said:
Keep in mind that changed from PUR to PUMM. Along the way, radio became combined with other stuff that makes that number appear more optimistic than what I'm seeing. I saw PUMM numbers dropping almost in half between 2018 and 2022. That's not good. Of course in the middle of that was covid. But I don't think use of measured media has improved. Here's one article from a few years ago:
Click to expand...
But.... for the moment, the survey considers "Mass Media" (See my correction) to only be radio stations and their streams, not satellite, not independent streams with no AM/FM/translator/HD channel. So it continues to be "radio stations" whether we "radiate" over the air or attract listeners via streams.

Radio stations are not Nautel or BE or whomever assembles electronics parts and cabinets. We create content, and the method of distribution is irrelevant as long as we get enough listeners for advertisers to take notice and buy time.

Correction. Should be "Measured Media".
 
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davideduardo said:
But.... for the moment, the survey considers "Mass Media" to only be radio stations and their streams, not satellite, not independent streams with no AM/FM/translator/HD channel.
Click to expand...

Does PUMM stand for "People Using Mass Media" or "People Using Measured Media" as stated in the article linked above? If it's Measured," then theoretically it could include any of those things if they worked out an agreement to be measured.

Also, do listeners to Cumulus, Good Karma, Salem, K-Love and other non-Nielsen subscribing stations count toward People Using Mass (or Measured) Media?
 
Theater of My Mind said:
Does PUMM stand for "People Using Mass Media" or "People Using Measured Media" as stated in the article linked above? If it's Measured," then theoretically it could include any of those things if they worked out an agreement to be measured.
Click to expand...
My bad. It is "measured".
Theater of My Mind said:
Also, do listeners to Cumulus, Good Karma, Salem, K-Love and other non-Nielsen subscribing stations count toward People Using Mass (or Measured) Media?
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Yes, "share", rating, and PUMM show all people using PPM devices, which at present only can detect sources that encode.

"Rating" by definition is "the percentage of the universe (meaning "everyone") being measured". They have to include all people whether an individual source is subscribed. What will not be included are stations that don't encode. Encoders are are not available to all "stations" in a market, subscribed or not. Some choose not to encode.
 
davideduardo said:
Not only is your point valid in those rugged terrain markets, but we also have to consider that the "best AM signals" were licensed in the 1930's. Today, most of those do not cover their entire market any more due to urban sprawl and man made noise.

There are huge markets like Phoenix and Houston that only have one or two (if that) AMs that cover the whole market day and night.

The fellow w ho wrote to Radio World fails to take into account that most larger size markets outgrew most or all of their AM stations decades ago.
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True and also in some cases the urban sprawl would have merged two distinct census areas together like Inland Empire and Los Angeles which also leads to the best AM signals not covering the entire market. They are mentioned as being in separate census areas but they share a TV market but have separate radio markets.
 
davideduardo said:
Smaller markets may have even more web-based listening than big ones. I am in a sub-100 ranked market and can't listen to any local station. Too many ads, badly written ads, repetitive liners or weak local "talent", horrible horizontal and vertical music scheduling... and overall just unlistenable.
Click to expand...

When I wrote that, I wasn't thinking that desire was the issue; rather access. I know that there are places in the U.S. that are so sparsely populated that Internet service providers have been reluctant to provide service in those areas because they would receive little or no return on their investment. While this certainly doesn't apply to where you or I live (Palm Springs, though small, is still a rated market, if memory serves), but I wondered about small towns in the Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska that are far away from major population centers. (Though I tend to raise his ire when I do this, maybe @SomeRadioGuy can comment on the availability of both Internet and telephone services in McGraph, Alaska.)
 
davideduardo said:
My bad. It is "measured".

Yes, "share", rating, and PUMM show all people using PPM devices, which at present only can detect sources that encode.

"Rating" by definition is "the percentage of the universe (meaning "everyone") being measured". They have to include all people whether an individual source is subscribed. What will not be included are stations that don't encode. Encoders are are not available to all "stations" in a market, subscribed or not. Some choose not to encode.
Click to expand...
Are there any significant stations in any top PPM market -- full-signal, mainstream musical format -- that choose not to encode and, thus, render the overall Nielsens for the market misleading at best, irrelevant at worst?
 
TheBigA said:
They have a bunch of heritage AM talk stations including WOR and KFI that are way outside 25-54.
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I thought we were discussing music stations.

Also I seriously doubt the number pushing sale departments at iHeart is selling 55+ to agencies which control a lion's share of the ad revenue in big markets.
 
Y2kTheNewOldies said:
True and also in some cases the urban sprawl would have merged two distinct census areas together like Inland Empire and Los Angeles which also leads to the best AM signals not covering the entire market. They are mentioned as being in separate census areas but they share a TV market but have separate radio markets.
Click to expand...
The Inland Empire is not...and has never been... part of the the LA market. It is quite common for a TV market to be much larger than the radio market because TV's coverage includes extensive outlying cable-only serviced areas.

Today's radio markets, to a great extent, were defined by Arbitron when they started up in the mid-60's. The big advantage of the diary back then was its ability to service a whole metro area by mail, while Pulse and Hooper generally limited coverage the inner city toll free central phone "no long distance" system. That had meant that Riverside and San Bernardino were separate markets, in fact.

A few cases saw two markets merge with Miami and Ft. Lauderdale being the big one. It meant more national dollars as the market moved up over ten positions in rank. So the subscribers voted, mostly the FMs, for a combined market.

The LA and Inland Empire turned down a consolidation as most stations did not want it as the majority don't cover both areas. In fact, Nielsen could easily combine both areas in a consolidated report, like they do with San Francisco... which included San Jose and where you can see San Jose alone or the whole combined metro.
 
CTListener said:
Are there any significant stations in any top PPM market -- full-signal, mainstream musical format -- that choose not to encode and, thus, render the overall Nielsens for the market misleading at best, irrelevant at worst?
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Yes, the Christian contemporary station in Orlando, WPOZ, thinks that the PPM destroys their audio quality and does not encode... or did not the last I checked.

What that does is reduce the PUMM rating by a small amount ( less than 0.1 in that case) and inflate the share by a bit, in proportion to all radio users. Agencies use rating, so the difference is not significant. Generally, all station have a 6AM - Mid rating of about a 5, so one station that might have a 3% share reduces ratings by 0.1 or less ratings points.l
 
secondchoice said:
post #29 did not mention demos. I don't have access to them. Without getting the copyright police mad what are those demos?
It's an iHeart station. I didn't know iHeart did any +55 stations except for BIN.
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All the news/talk stations iHeart owns are predominantly 55 and over,
 
TheBigA said:
Most of that audience is over 65.
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But they do relatively well in local sales because the market has such a high Black population, meaning that local agencies and direct accounts do use it sometimes.
 


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