According Inside Radio and NY Times, Nielsen is acquiring Arbitron for 1.26b. I can see why this would make strategic sense, but I wonder how much might change in the future. Is there a subtext about radio in general here?
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Nielsen acquires Arbitron for 1.26b
- Thread starter MoldaMania182
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thataveragejoe said:
I am going to add to what I posted on the Business of Radio board...
The announcement that Nielsen would absorb Arbitron, plus yesterday's information from Arbitron's own RADAR national survey point out that traditional single medium measurement is not the future.
Just days ago, Arbitron's RADAR showed a half-hour reduction in per-person listening levels per week across the board, with nearly an hour reduction in the last year in younger demos. Over the air radio is losing listening time, which means lower delivery and lower ad rates. And lower revenue.
Arbitron has the patents and the experience with a multimedia capable measurement device. Nielsen has a huge revenue stream, but their meter is not portable in an increasingly mobile age. Combine the two and you can derive further technology; in the meantime, you have the revenue stream to ward off competitors in new media.
It's good news for Nielsen, a solid buy-out for Arbitron shareholders and could likely result in larger sample sizes as Nielsen uses the PPM for radio, TV and new media.
DavidEduardo said:
Thanks, I completely forgot about the business board, where this would have made more sense...too far down the page.
Interesting note I ran into is Pandora is going to be ranked against stations too...
http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/18/...erger-to-begin-ranking-internet-radio-pandora
thataveragejoe said:
The problem is that Pandora can not be measured by today's PPM technology so it can't be part of radio ratings.
The press releases and statements by Nielsen indicate that the future is cross-platform measurement. But the timetable for that is somewhere in the future . For the moment, don't look for Pandora to appear in the local market radio ratings.
DavidEduardo said:
Clarification: I don't. I just found it interesting they're going to go there. I know movement in that direction in the past has been staunchly talked down by some whom I shall not name.
thataveragejoe said:
Ratings companies achieve success by making their product essential to ad agencies. Arbitron caused the eventual demise of Hooper and The Pulse because they sold the benefits of their survey to agencies, who bought exclusively from Arbitron data.
The PPM was developed mostly because agencies wanted faster delivery of data as well as more immediate data when compared with the diary book, which contained information that, in part, was over 4 months old when the book was issued. Radio went along with the change... not because they wanted to pay 60% more for ratings but because agencies said they needed such data in order to buy.
If agencies want cross platform data, they will get it. Radio should benefit because having data placed in the same information souce as cable, TV, and new media makes radio's reach more evident and more attractive.
TheBigA said:
Agencies are never happy. "Happy" means higher CPP's.
When there were multiple ratings services, agencies would negotiate based on the book that made a station look worse.
I was in a (now) top 15 market 4 decades ago when, for two years, there was no ratings service. By the end of two years, market revenue was off by 50%. Agencies would say, "I can give you $20 a spot... take it or leave it" since there was no metric for rates. Ratings prove the saying of "damned if you do, damned if you don't."
thataveragejoe said:
Ratings companies achieve success by making their product essential to ad agencies. Arbitron caused the eventual demise of Hooper and The Pulse because they sold the benefits of their survey to agencies, who bought exclusively from Arbitron data.
The PPM was developed mostly because agencies wanted faster delivery of data as well as more immediate data when compared with the diary book, which contained information that, in part, was over 4 months old when the book was issued. Radio went along with the change... not because they wanted to pay 60% more for ratings but because agencies said they needed such data in order to buy.
If agencies want cross platform data, they will get it. Radio should benefit because having data placed in the same information souce as cable, TV, and new media makes radio's reach more evident and more attractive.
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