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Kabrich Puts Millman Aside; Will Fight Arbitron Instead

R

RoddyFreeman

You might have noticed that much-honored consultant Randy Kabrich has not posted here lately. Kabrich had been bashing Neil Millman.

The reason is Kabrich's highly-publicized fight with Arbitron over the People Meter. Last week, Kabrich purchased a PPM device on eBay, and Arbitron's attorney has asked him to return it immediately according to AllAccess.com. Kabrich was quoted as saying he intends to fight Arbitron and win.

His exact quote was, "In the past I've taken on 2 major companies with lawsuits and won. So I've made a decision to hold up on fighting Neil Millman since my fight with Arbitron has greater implications for the industry I love."
 
Ok so Kabrich has the stupid device. What's he going to do to it? How does having the device prove anything? I see why Arbitron would want it back. It is their property and selling it would be a form of theft since the rightful owner didn't sell it.

As far as NEil goes he concentrate on fighting Kabrich either he is still mourning John Hughes.
 
RTibbs said:
Ok so Kabrich has the stupid device. What's he going to do to it? How does having the device prove anything? I see why Arbitron would want it back. It is their property and selling it would be a form of theft since the rightful owner didn't sell it.

As far as NEil goes he concentrate on fighting Kabrich either he is still mourning John Hughes.
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Supposedly, these PPMs on eBay are "salvage freight" items; that is, the shipper lost it and paid out a claim to the shipper (Arbitron) for the value of the lost item. At that point, Arbitron was made whole by the cash payment, lost title to the PPM, and the shipper can dispose of the PPM however it likes if and when it ever found the PPM, using the standard rules for insurance salvage.

However, I am not sure how that might apply to Arbitron's intellectual property in the PPM, versus the PPM device itself (which, I would guess, is all Arbitron insured the item for).
 
The intellectual property is still protected. In fact, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act would pose civil and criminal penalties for Krazy Kabrich, should he attempt to reverse engineer the encypted data on the devices.
 
Of much more value than scoping out the digital setup would be knowing how sensitive the thing is, whether it is directional, and several other parameters which can likely be determined without violating any laws.
Plus, Arbitron is already in bad odor about the technology in many quarters, and has Neilson just waiting to strike in major markets with an alternative methodology. The wise move, it seems to me, would be to clam.
If I was Kabrich, I think I'd clam also. A consultant who could accurately advise a client how rto garner an edge in the ratings beyond programming advice could pretty much name his price.
 
I'm not sure how much information about the device can be gained if you can't extract and interpret the data.(Arbitron claims it would be"difficult.")
And even if you could do you think there is a *significant* advantage to be gained? What properties of the data capture technology could you manipulate to your advantage?
The bigger problem with PPM is the sample composition - more so than the methodology. And it's Arbitron and their statistical(make that DAMNED statistical)fun and games - things like "weighting" - these often have a political component....it's not just pure math.
How do you get all demographic groups to participate? Is it true that women do not want to wear a PPM meter because it doesn't match the purse and shoes?
How do you create an demographically accurate panel if certain ethnic groups are less likely to participate - someone is "guessing" when creating the weighting formulas.
These are the issues Randy Cabbage will NOT solve by picking apart a PPM meter - and these are just a few of the real problems confronting PPM measured stations. Until Arbitron has REAL competition it will be more of the same......
 
I don't think Kabrich wants the data itself; as Littlejohn suggests, I think he wants to know how it captures the data--how sensitive it is, how directional it is, how well or poorly it works with varying levels of background noise, whether or not there are any minimum or maximum length of times a signal has to be received to count, whether there is a maximum length of time after which no additional AQH is tallied, how well it works with leaky headphones, etc.

These factors could then translate into the PPM value of "listening while you work" (doesn't Kabrich work for Cox?) or, rather, listening to someone else listen while they work; listening at the pizza parlor to a management-selected station; listening in noisy environs such as ballgames or the beach.

If PPM is good at picking up "involuntary" listening opportunities (i.e., someone else's radio), then the promotional task becomes influencing the owners of those radios rather than the involuntary listeners. Maybe you'll get more "biscuits with the boss" promos if management influences their subordinates to listen to a particular station. Maybe a radio station could pick up the tab for someone's ASCAP license if they exclusively play their station in their store. Similarly, if PPM can't pick up someone listening to the PBP at a ballgame because of headphone usage or crowd noise or competing radios (Sis gets bored and tunes in to Q100, for something that might affect Q100), why promote that listening option?

I am sure that Nielsen or someone would love to reverse-engineer it, perhaps to come up with a competing product (although it seems all you need to know is already out there).
 
jabba17 said:
I don't think Kabrich wants the data itself; as Littlejohn suggests, I think he wants to know how it captures the data--how sensitive it is, how directional it is, how well or poorly it works with varying levels of background noise, whether or not there are any minimum or maximum length of times a signal has to be received to count, whether there is a maximum length of time after which no additional AQH is tallied, how well it works with leaky headphones, etc.

These factors could then translate into the PPM value of "listening while you work" (doesn't Kabrich work for Cox?) or, rather, listening to someone else listen while they work; listening at the pizza parlor to a management-selected station; listening in noisy environs such as ballgames or the beach.

If PPM is good at picking up "involuntary" listening opportunities (i.e., someone else's radio), then the promotional task becomes influencing the owners of those radios rather than the involuntary listeners. Maybe you'll get more "biscuits with the boss" promos if management influences their subordinates to listen to a particular station. Maybe a radio station could pick up the tab for someone's ASCAP license if they exclusively play their station in their store. Similarly, if PPM can't pick up someone listening to the PBP at a ballgame because of headphone usage or crowd noise or competing radios (Sis gets bored and tunes in to Q100, for something that might affect Q100), why promote that listening option?

I am sure that Nielsen or someone would love to reverse-engineer it, perhaps to come up with a competing product (although it seems all you need to know is already out there).
Click to expand...

My point is that if you can NOT extract the data you can't quantify or qualify it's abilities. A spokesman for Arbitron said the data would be hard to mine and even if you did.....what would you really learn?
I suppose you could look at the chip set and associated components and make some assumptions.
Programmers who concentrate on tricking PPM meters instead of delivering good radio programming are the problem today. Use your ingenuity to create better programming.
If you build it.....they will come.
 
Nielsen is well familiar with Arbitron's People Meter device. For years, Arbitron and Nielsen worked together on the meter's development. In fact, the two companies were partners in the Houston test market before Nielsen decided to end the relationship.

I attended a PPM seminar, and the subject of incidental listening (i.e. pizza parlor) was brought up. Bottom line is that kind of listening is such a small portion of a person's daily listening that it has virtually no impact on the numbers.

Randy Kabrich used to consult all of the Cox AC stations. From what I was told by WSB management, he does not work with Cox any longer except for some periodic reviews he does for Bob Neil. Some years ago, I called after hours to leave a message with my WSB salesperson. I apparently didn't remember the number correctly, and a voice answered, "Randy Kabrich." Taken a little aback, I said, "I was trying to call Mike Copeland." Kabrich responded, "Well you obviously have the wrong number."
 
RoddyFreeman said:
Randy Kabrich used to consult all of the Cox AC stations. From what I was told by WSB management, he does not work with Cox any longer except for some periodic reviews he does for Bob Neil. Some years ago, I called after hours to leave a message with my WSB salesperson. I apparently didn't remember the number correctly, and a voice answered, "Randy Kabrich." Taken a little aback, I said, "I was trying to call Mike Copeland." Kabrich responded, "Well you obviously have the wrong number."
Click to expand...


Yeah....you can give Copee some money and actually get some results......
 
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