Philadlephia radio market. No New Castle Co De. Why?

[arggone]

The Philadlephia signals are coming in clean as a whistle in Wilmington down to New Castle. I noticed that the arbitron ratings only include Phil,Ches,MOnt,Bucks,Del,Burl,Cam,Glou counties. Whats the story behind this omission of New Castle County? To a lesser extent Mercer County NJ also gets a clean Philly signal for much of the county.

 

[ccuphl]

The Philadlephia signals are coming in clean as a whistle in Wilmington down to New Castle. I noticed that the arbitron ratings only include Phil,Ches,MOnt,Bucks,Del,Burl,Cam,Glou counties. Whats the story behind this omission of New Castle County? To a lesser extent Mercer County NJ also gets a clean Philly signal for much of the county.

The Philadelphia metro does not include New Castle County, but the Philadelphia TSA does.

 

[OldNumber7]

Market boundaries are not drawn to correspond to radio signals.
Arbitron metros are designed to pretty much correspond with the Census Bureau's Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Those boundaries are created by economic patterns. If more people from New Castle County commuted to (or did commerce with) the Philly metro then New Castle County would become part of the Philly metro. For now, however, Wilmington is its own metropolitan area, based in New Castle County and getting the majority of economic activity/commuting originating in Cecil County Maryland and Salem County New Jersey.

 

[arggone]

Market boundaries are not drawn to correspond to radio signals.
Arbitron metros are designed to pretty much correspond with the Census Bureau's Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Those boundaries are created by economic patterns. If more people from New Castle County commuted to (or did commerce with) the Philly metro then New Castle County would become part of the Philly metro. For now, however, Wilmington is its own metropolitan area, based in New Castle County and getting the majority of economic activity/commuting originating in Cecil County Maryland and Salem County New Jersey.

That makes sense but why then is SF/Oak/San Jose which are 50 miles apart and a cohesive metro but Philadelphia/Wilm-Phila/Trenton which are 25 miles apart not a cohesive metro. Seems to be some inconsistency here.


Certainly San Jose and SF are no more connected than Wilmington Philadlephia.Having lived in both areas I would say Phila/Wilm are more closely alligned than San Jose and SF.

 

[arggone]

The Philadlephia signals are coming in clean as a whistle in Wilmington down to New Castle. I noticed that the arbitron ratings only include Phil,Ches,MOnt,Bucks,Del,Burl,Cam,Glou counties. Whats the story behind this omission of New Castle County? To a lesser extent Mercer County NJ also gets a clean Philly signal for much of the county.

The Philadelphia metro does not include New Castle County, but the Philadelphia TSA does.

Pardon my ignorance but what exactly does TSA designate?

 

[OldNumber7]

Market boundaries are not drawn to correspond to radio signals.
Arbitron metros are designed to pretty much correspond with the Census Bureau's Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Those boundaries are created by economic patterns. If more people from New Castle County commuted to (or did commerce with) the Philly metro then New Castle County would become part of the Philly metro. For now, however, Wilmington is its own metropolitan area, based in New Castle County and getting the majority of economic activity/commuting originating in Cecil County Maryland and Salem County New Jersey.

That makes sense but why then is SF/Oak/San Jose which are 50 miles apart and a cohesive metro but Philadelphia/Wilm-Phila/Trenton which are 25 miles apart not a cohesive metro. Seems to be some inconsistency here.


Certainly San Jose and SF are no more connected than Wilmington Philadlephia.Having lived in both areas I would say Phila/Wilm are more closely alligned than San Jose and SF.

San Jose is its own Arbitron market. It is also its own Metropolitan Survey Area. It is part of a Consolidated Metro Statistical Area with SF and Oakland, but that's a different statistical category that the Census bureau uses (just as the Census calls Phila/Wilm/Trenton a Consolidated metro, or Wash/Baltimore a Consolidated metro).

 

[arggone]

Something isnt adding up here.


According to the 2000 Census here are the metro populations.

Philadelphia 5.1 M
SF/OAK/Fremont 4 M
San Jose 1.7 M

HOw does that info translate into this. How does Philaldephia which the 4th largest metro(msa) become the 7th largest radio market? How is SF/OAK/Fremont which is the 12th largest metro (msa) the 4th largest radio market?


Here is the Fall 2008 arbitron top markets


1 PPM BH S New York, NY 15,393,700
2 PPM BH S Los Angeles, CA 10,877,600
3 PPM BH S Chicago, IL 7,813,900
4 PPM BH S San Francisco, CA 6,013,700
5 PPM BH S Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX 5,120,100
6 PPM BH S/PPM Houston-Galveston, TX 4,759,600
7 PPM BH S Atlanta, GA 4,378,000
8 PPM BH S/PPM Philadelphia, PA 4,352,800
35 PPM BH San Jose,CA 1,487,500

 

[davideduardo]

Something isnt adding up here.


According to the 2000 Census here are the metro populations.

Philadelphia 5.1 M
SF/OAK/Fremont 4 M
San Jose 1.7 M

HOw does that info translate into this. How does Philaldephia which the 4th largest metro(msa) become the 7th largest radio market? How is SF/OAK/Fremont which is the 12th largest metro (msa) the 4th largest radio market?


Here is the Fall 2008 arbitron top markets


1 PPM BH S New York, NY 15,393,700
2 PPM BH S Los Angeles, CA 10,877,600
3 PPM BH S Chicago, IL 7,813,900
4 PPM BH S San Francisco, CA 6,013,700
5 PPM BH S Dallas-Ft. Worth, TX 5,120,100
6 PPM BH S/PPM Houston-Galveston, TX 4,759,600
7 PPM BH S Atlanta, GA 4,378,000
8 PPM BH S/PPM Philadelphia, PA 4,352,800
35 PPM BH San Jose,CA 1,487,500

Radio markets are defined by Arbitron, not the OMB and Census Bureau. Counties are part of an MSA (Metropolitan Survey Area) based on a specific rule of Arbitron called the 50/15 rule that establishes the criteria for county inclusion based on radio listening and commuting patterns.

San Jose is an embedded market, meaning that while Arbitron produces a report only for the home county, that county is also part of the San Francisco MSA, as is another embedded market, Santa Rosa.

The Arbitron population figures are for 12+ for the diary and 5+ for the PPM, not 0+.

Additionally, market populations and thus ranks are updated every year, since Arbitron does not use Census data directly, but, rather, data provided by the leading demographer in the US, Claritas, which produces updates every year for every county in the US.

 

[davideduardo]

San Jose is its own Arbitron market. It is also its own Metropolitan Survey Area. It is part of a Consolidated Metro Statistical Area with SF and Oakland, but that's a different statistical category that the Census bureau uses (just as the Census calls Phila/Wilm/Trenton a Consolidated metro, or Wash/Baltimore a Consolidated metro).

Although I explained this in another post, San Jose is an embedded market although it is part of the San Francisco Metropolitan Survey Area. Embedded markets, such as Nassau / Suffolk in the New York MSA, are produced when a group of stations asks for and pays for the separate reports and tabulations. The San Jose data is included in the SF market report as well as being broken out for the San Jose only report.

The Census Bureau's Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area (CMSA) definitions are not the basis for the Arbitron Metropolitan Survey Areas any more than they are for Nielsen's market definitions for TV, which are even larger than radio metros.

 

[davideduardo]

The Philadelphia metro does not include New Castle County, but the Philadelphia TSA does.

Pardon my ignorance but what exactly does TSA designate?

Total Survey Area. It's an expanded metro, larger than the MSA, with data provided twice a year in the diary report. There are no TSA's in the PPM.

 

[davideduardo]

Market boundaries are not drawn to correspond to radio signals.

Actually, in a broad sense they are. Arbitron uses a multi-part procedure to place counties in a metro and here are the guidelines used to determine it (aka the 55/15 rule):

The county is contiguous to a county within the Metro.
At least 55 percent of the quarter-hours of un-weighted listening reported in the county are credited to Metro stations, based on the previous calendar year’s Spring and Fall surveys.
15 percent of the commuting from the county must be into the existing Metro, according to the most recent decennial Census

Arbitron metros are designed to pretty much correspond with the Census Bureau's Metropolitan Statistical Areas.

I think, on review, you will find that well less than half the Arbitron metros are the same as the OMB and Census definitions.