Pete Kennedy, "The Mayor" - Rochester radio vet of dozens of years sacked by I-Heart in latest round of layoffs

[TheBigA]

I would totally disagree the station management "reads the diary comments" and " Sees what people are connecting". The only person what would give a damn about any of that would be the PD.

You have given us all great detail from diary comments, so obviously in your case the owner gives a damn about the comments.

 

[davideduardo]

You have given us all great detail from diary comments, so obviously in your case the owner gives a damn about the comments.

But, based on my minimum of four visits a year to Columbia over a decade and a half up to when nearly everything I cared about was in a PPM market, I can count on my fingers the times I saw managers of other stations there doing a diary review or attending one of the fly-ins. Those there for reviews were PDs, consultants and larger station research directors.

About the only managers I ever saw or heard about doing diary reviews were owner-operators who had deep interests in their own stations. True story: the two times a manager went with me to Arbitron, each got really bad flu and had to fly back home to see their doctor.

The little list of those who got a book reissued did not include a single GM. I always looked to see who else was added to the list... a nice ego trip.

For a while (and maybe even now in diary markets) you could buy the comment section. I never looked at them as most seemed to be from people who felt they had to say something. Way back in Beltsville, I saw a comment that "I did not like all the stations I had to listen to, but I enjoyed being part of a project". It was from a woman in her 80's who listed every station in the market with at least an hour or so of listening...

Looking at comments would distract me from trying to identify patterns and behaviours you could not see in the "book".

 

[AceBiscuits]

What a shame about Pete, hopefully he lands on his feet somewhere in town.

 

[TheBigA]

I can count on my fingers the times I saw managers of other stations there doing a diary review or attending one of the fly-ins. Those there for reviews were PDs, consultants and larger station research directors.

When I said "management," I meant PDs. They are part of station management. They are in a hiring position, and they supervise the air talent. So the fact that they read diary comments means they know which of their talent is getting mentioned and for what.

 

[davideduardo]

When I said "management," I meant PDs. They are part of station management. They are in a hiring position, and they supervise the air talent. So the fact that they read diary comments means they know which of their talent is getting mentioned and for what.

As I said, few of us ever spent valuable time in Columbia reading dairy comments. There are nearly none... or none at all... that are of any value. And the usual was "I like Warm 98 because it plays nice music while I work". Valueless.

There is no requirement for comments, and most diaries have none. Arbitron found out that putting a comment page in helped enhance compliance and return rates, but there is no further value in that.

Given the number of diaries in the markets 50 and beyond, no station gets mention in more than about 20%. Of those, maybe 10% have a comment and of the comments, only a couple are specific enough to be "I like Bob Armstrong in the morning but the guy with him is annoying". Most are "I enjoyed participating in this survey" or "I always listen to my favorite stations and never try the rest" and other non-actionable comments.

Smaller markets are in the 50 to 80 in-tab diaries a week. A station with a cume rating of 20 will be in just 10 to 16 diaries, meaning that perhaps one will have a comment of any kind.

 

[TheBigA]

There is no requirement for comments, and most diaries have none. Arbitron found out that putting a comment page in helped enhance compliance and return rates, but there is no further value in that.

That's OK. My comment about management reading diary comments was incidental. There are lots of other tools in the PDs kit for evaluating the effectiveness of talent. The ratings themselves are certainly one of those tools. But there are others.

 

[davideduardo]

That's OK. My comment about management reading diary comments was incidental. There are lots of other tools in the PDs kit for evaluating the effectiveness of talent. The ratings themselves are certainly one of those tools. But there are others.

Absolutely.

What those reading our posts may not realize is that we can create all kinds of custom reports, such as Hispanics 22 to 41 and things like that. And we can get tables showing sharing with every other station, and ethnic breaks such as non-Hispanic white, Hispanic, Hispanic English Dominant, Black and so on. If a station subscribes to an add on service, they can get all kinds of trending reports and things like how many morning cumers listen in other dayparts.

A lot of those reports are so specific that the sample size is unreliable. And Nielsen will not produce some reports if there is not enough data. But you can do very deep dives when you have subscriber data.

 

[Buddy Shula]

You have given us all great detail from diary comments, so obviously in your case the owner gives a damn about the comments.

We are not huge corporate. The owner is also the AE. Of course I give a damn. Corporate does not