Obama, Arbitron & PPM

[lipripper]

Can someone explain why & what Obama is "concerned" about PPM being rolled out in some new markets.

How does this affect him? Why should he care.

 

[TheRealOtherNeil]

Obama is concerned that Chris Krok is not getting a fair shake in Macon, duh!

 

[nyc101]

Obama is acting on behalf of minority broadcasters, at the urging of The Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, the Spanish Radio Association, the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters, the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council and several broadcasters — Entravision, Spanish Broadcasting Systems, Univision, ICBC Broadcast Holdings and Border Media.

 

[taylorengineer]

I would like to hear from Kabrach and Eduardo with their thoughts as to why Urban stations have had a rough road with PPM.
Is the panel not representative of the community? If the build of the panel wearing the PPM monitors correctly reflects the population......then what's the problem?
In Houston, the Urbans took a big hit for the first month or two. But after three or four, they were right back in the top 5, positioned almost the same as pre-PPM.
One programmer I spoke with believes the Urbans were plain 'ol formatically "lazy".....that PPM woke them up and made them pay attention to each and every programming element. Since PPM can give you a minute by minute account of any listening period it seems you can start looking at individual songs and elements and see what the listener reaction is. There is a company which glues PPM data to actual audio and you can see what happens in terms of listening when each song plays, when commercials play, and when the talent opens the mic.
Did Urban radio learn to be "better" or did Arbitron "fix" the Urban numbers??

 

[Kabrich]

I would like to hear from Kabrach and Eduardo with their thoughts as to why Urban stations have had a rough road with PPM.
Is the panel not representative of the community? If the build of the panel wearing the PPM monitors correctly reflects the population......then what's the problem?
In Houston, the Urbans took a big hit for the first month or two. But after three or four, they were right back in the top 5, positioned almost the same as pre-PPM.
One programmer I spoke with believes the Urbans were plain 'ol formatically "lazy".....that PPM woke them up and made them pay attention to each and every programming element. Since PPM can give you a minute by minute account of any listening period it seems you can start looking at individual songs and elements and see what the listener reaction is. There is a company which glues PPM data to actual audio and you can see what happens in terms of listening when each song plays, when commercials play, and when the talent opens the mic.
Did Urban radio learn to be "better" or did Arbitron "fix" the Urban numbers??

Bottom line - as we havent had good samples with Arbitron PPM, no one really knows where reality is.

Radio One CLAIMED they had the magic formula in Houston.....unfortunately as they must have lost it as they have gone back down. There is a very clear cause/effect that mimics the Ethnic In-Tab - Urban PPM Sample goes up, Urbans go up. They Houston's Urban's peaked when the Urban In-Tab was indexing close to 140. Now its back down to levels closer to 100.

Let's also make this very simple - Houston has the MRC "seal of approval". All other markets do not - and are not even close after 2 votes to not give Arbitron Approval this year by the MRC.

What's the difference?

All PPM Markets use the same meters.

All PPM Markets have the meters "phone home" the same way.

All PPM Markets tabulate that information the same way.

All PPM Markets determine the ratings the same way.

The only difference is the way the sample is placed. Houston is addressed based which allows a much better sample, including Cell Phone Only Households which Nielsen estimates at 20% by the end of this year. The other markets are telephone based recruitment.

So....if the other markets cannot get MRC Approval, where do you think the problem is?

Not hard to figure out.

Also, remember Arbitron will only increase Cell Phone Only sample to 7% BY THE END OF NEXT YEAR. Guess what demos and races have more Cell Phone Only Households?

And finally, Arbitron is under scrutiny once again in Houston and has the possibility of being decertified once again there. Last Thursday, at NABOB, Anthony Torreiri of MRC said that SPI in Houston was significantly lower than when Arbitron was accredited and that MRC has sent them a notice that they are concerned.

 

[taylorengineer]

Thanks for your response Randy. Many of us will live or die according to the whims of Arbitron and their methodology - I appreciate your insight. (You're not billing us hourly for this are you?)
So we can simply say the panel does NOT represent the survey area correctly.
Exactly why is it so difficult to form a representative panel? You've mentioned recruiting methods - what are the other issues? After a year or two at this why is Arbitron still having trouble getting this right?
Also - I thought the panel had a two year life span. Understanding that some families will come and go due to relocation or other issues I still thought this was supposed to be a relatively stable group. Has the Houston panel been "tweaked" for Urban/Hispanic reporting? Why are Urban numbers down - up -back down in Houston.....sampling tweaks or real listening trends?
How about Atlanta? Have any "surprises" popped up, after the first couple of PPM weeks which set off alarms at Arbitron? Are Atlanta Urbans about to get blindsided?

 

[winreader]

I would like to hear from Kabrach and Eduardo with their thoughts as to why Urban stations have had a rough road with PPM.
Is the panel not representative of the community? If the build of the panel wearing the PPM monitors correctly reflects the population......then what's the problem?
In Houston, the Urbans took a big hit for the first month or two. But after three or four, they were right back in the top 5, positioned almost the same as pre-PPM.
One programmer I spoke with believes the Urbans were plain 'ol formatically "lazy".....that PPM woke them up and made them pay attention to each and every programming element. Since PPM can give you a minute by minute account of any listening period it seems you can start looking at individual songs and elements and see what the listener reaction is. There is a company which glues PPM data to actual audio and you can see what happens in terms of listening when each song plays, when commercials play, and when the talent opens the mic.
Did Urban radio learn to be "better" or did Arbitron "fix" the Urban numbers??

You don't need to know about radio or PPM to figure it out.

[EDIT]

PPM is closer to reality than the diaries. Minority listening shares compress when their listeners can't "vote" for them on paper anymore without listening.

Reality must be changed. Like with the mortgage crisis. [EDIT]


[EDIT-race baiting]

 

[TheRealOtherNeil]

I would like to hear from Kabrach and Eduardo with their thoughts as to why Urban stations have had a rough road with PPM.
Is the panel not representative of the community? If the build of the panel wearing the PPM monitors correctly reflects the population......then what's the problem?
In Houston, the Urbans took a big hit for the first month or two. But after three or four, they were right back in the top 5, positioned almost the same as pre-PPM.
One programmer I spoke with believes the Urbans were plain 'ol formatically "lazy".....that PPM woke them up and made them pay attention to each and every programming element. Since PPM can give you a minute by minute account of any listening period it seems you can start looking at individual songs and elements and see what the listener reaction is. There is a company which glues PPM data to actual audio and you can see what happens in terms of listening when each song plays, when commercials play, and when the talent opens the mic.
Did Urban radio learn to be "better" or did Arbitron "fix" the Urban numbers??

You don't need to know about radio or PPM to figure it out.

[EDIT--originating quote removed]

I must have missed that in Obama's acceptance speech.

As for Arbitron fixing Urban numbers, I remember something many years ago where minorities were paid more to fill out diary's than their Caucasian brothers and sisters. Thus in the mid-1980's Urban stations went from low listener levels to higher one due to more reporting.

 

[Kabrich]

Exactly why is it so difficult to form a representative panel? You've mentioned recruiting methods - what are the other issues? After a year or two at this why is Arbitron still having trouble getting this right?
Also - I thought the panel had a two year life span. Understanding that some families will come and go due to relocation or other issues I still thought this was supposed to be a relatively stable group. Has the Houston panel been "tweaked" for Urban/Hispanic reporting? Why are Urban numbers down - up -back down in Houston.....sampling tweaks or real listening trends?
How about Atlanta? Have any "surprises" popped up, after the first couple of PPM weeks which set off alarms at Arbitron? Are Atlanta Urbans about to get blindsided?

Arbitron uses telephone based sample, Nielsen uses addressed based sample. With the advent of VoIP and Cell Phone Only numbers, obvious balance and geographic issues come to light that Nielsen does not have. Which demo is most apt to have a land based telephone number listed and not moved around (or into Atlanta) - the older ages.

Houston Urban stations went up the Black Index went up to 140 and has come back down when the Index was dropped more towards 100.

This shouldnt be a surprise.

The most dangerous thing in Broadcasting is winning and not knowing why. Radio One in Houston is patting themselves on the back for "finding the secret receipe" and denied sample had anything to do with it - problem is, it seems that somehow they lost the secret receipe (or it went bad).

Is the sample tweaked? Yes - and that's another questionable practice now. No one ever complained about oversample, but in their infinite wisdom, Arbitron decided to drop households to put in more households that had 18-24 or 25-34. And since last Fall they have moved households with 18-24 (and 25-34 since March) to the top of the list.

Even with all this manipulation, one of the last weeklies we saw out of Houston had lowest Women 25-34 DDI we had ever seen out of Houston and the 3rd smallest sample in the Demo - while once again the 55+ numbers continue to over index.

Again, the bottom line is we really don't know what reality looks like - because we have yet to see a properly balanced sample.

In Atlanta it could be worse - much worse.

Imagine, for example, that because of the lack of Geographical Balance Arbitron has in its recruiting, the majority of the White Males 35-54 happen to be South of Downtown? Imagine what that would do to WSRV. Ditto for African Americans if the sample went North?

Before you say that couldn't happen, consider Long Island....which if you drive it you understand why the name LLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOONGGGGGGGGGG Island.....Its about 125+ miles long and the Class B Stations do not cover the entire thing for obvious reasons.

Nassau County has about 45% of the population and they normally listen to NYC stations. Suffolk has about 55% and they listen to Long Island Stations (as the County line is about 60 miles out from NYC). If the diaries or ppms go to Nassau, the NYC stations do well, if they go to Suffolk, the Long Island Stations do well.

Again, the split is roughly 45/55 - but 18-34 Arbitron paid no attention to the Geographical Balance and 60% of the PPMs went into Nassau and only 40% to Suffolk...instead of 45/55.....what do you think that did for Z100 in NYC and what happened to WBLI in Long Island?

Luckily I caught it last September and they have made some progress a year later (geeezzzz) to balance it out more, but its still not correct - in fact, Women 18-24 is at an all time low now (how do you think that plays to a Top 40?).

Furthermore, Atlanta's sample is MUCH SMALLER than it should be to begin with. Markets that are smaller have a bigger sample size. Combine that with the fact that through week 2 of October, the DDI for 18-54 persons is running well below 100 (100=right on target), you begin to find the gotchas.

So yes, there are all kinds of issues that can influence the sample.