JANUARY 2016 PPMs.....

[littlejohn]

Interesting analysis. We certainly agree that overdoing it will result in poor audio. It would be interesting to take a monitor in the field to poor listening environments and compare its reception to one in the studio. When they agree, one could say that the watermarking is accurate. In that all of these boxes are software controlled, I expect to see Ver 2.x of the Voltair appear. One chases the other. When the new monitor from Neilson and the Voltair agree on encoding success, people will believe Neilson, but likely not before.
The Rating Counsel can proclaim distortion, but should (and has so far) support its claim. To do so by accusing someone of using a particular box (which you contend isn't being done much anyway) ain't gonna fly.
Neilson v Clem is being closely watched by everybody.

 

[radi0]

Several Voltairs in Atlanta. I would guess that none are being used as simply a monitor.

It shows up on voices giving them a distinct "hallway" or "restroom" effect, even bordering on low level feedback.

Yup, I can hear it on many of the stations here. My ears have become tuned for the hallway/restroom or as I like to call it robotic flange effect, and its all I can hear now on many stations. Some worse than others. I'd turn it down if it was me, but what are you gonna do, have to do what the boss says.

 

[littlejohn]

It appears that some formats benefit more than others from enhancement. Time will tell.

 

[HGR1290]

Version 2 came out a month or two before the eCBET upgrade came along. V2 allows anyone with access to view what the encoding did during a particular minute all the way back to when that upgrade was done. It also shows the "enhancement" level at that time.

In some cases, I would imagine that the home office has handed down a strong suggestion that "you will run the processor at X level". With the ability to see into your processor, it makes little sense to defy that suggestion. (They can also set it for you....if they have access.)

 

[davideduardo]

David, well taken except for the last sentence. We buy radio based on ratings, not shares. So if PUR rises, it increases the rating points, and the same GRP's should cost less.

The issue is that the improvement in encoding is not enough to raise the average station by a whole tenth of a ratings point, so the average station won't see any improvement. But at the market level, improvements of 0.05 points on the larger stations combined could increase market PUR by as much as 1.0 ratings points. With PUR's below 10 in many markets today, that is a significant increase on the order of 10%.

Obviously, last year when some stations had Voltair boxes and others did not, the playing field was not level and those "better encoded" stations did see ratings gains. Now that everyone has eCBET, nobody has an advantage.

 

[davideduardo]

Version 2 came out a month or two before the eCBET upgrade came along. V2 allows anyone with access to view what the encoding did during a particular minute all the way back to when that upgrade was done. It also shows the "enhancement" level at that time.

In some cases, I would imagine that the home office has handed down a strong suggestion that "you will run the processor at X level". With the ability to see into your processor, it makes little sense to defy that suggestion. (They can also set it for you....if they have access.)

V2 also corrected mis-reads to some extent, so the metering is not perfect. The original device would show inadequate encoding, over a period while looking at the actual MediaMonitors once could see multiple detections when the Voltair showed no tagging.

The advantage of eCBET is that it improves the actual encoding process. Voltair does things differently by altering/distorting the audio in the 10 frequency bands the Nielsen encoder can use in order to provide a richer audio content in those specific areas to allow encoding to happen. In the process, the station audio can become quite annoying and cause greater loss of TSL than any gain in the number of encoding bursts might produce.

 

[littlejohn]

I should of said 'Ver next.0', wasn't meaning to single out V2 at all, more to point out, a moving target generates a moving weapon.
As to audio garbage and TSL, that's always been the case. We used to watch females from 19 or so up to about 30 or so. If their TSL began to lag with no great changes in the product, we'd back up the processing a bit - and always saw them return. Interestingly enough they won't tell you in focus groups why they don't like the station any more - probably because they don't realize the reason is it's tiring. But they will tell you they don't like it.