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PPM comes to Boston
- Thread starter artiemad
- Start date
MassMusicMan
Banned
If that's true, then I (and a lot of other people) have grossly overestimated the popularity of Jam'n.
MassMusicMan
Banned
I'd love to see the female 18-34 numbers for WKLB. Chicks my age LOVE country. Shows at Great Woods are a great place to scope 25 year olds in cowboy hats.
Hey, check this out:
http://www.arbitron.com/downloads/boston_ppm_update_03_09.pdf
It's got some rough, but interesting, numbers and rankings of all the Boston-area stations, with PPM data from January. See pages 29-30 and 47-48. Especially 29, there's a lot of stations whose cume is apparently massively underreported with diaries (WMKK for example). Interestingly, some cumes were apparently OVERreported (WBUR and WRKO, for example) which makes one wonder if the ability to establish your branding with listeners will be less important with the objective PPM vs. the subjective diaries.
http://www.arbitron.com/downloads/boston_ppm_update_03_09.pdf
It's got some rough, but interesting, numbers and rankings of all the Boston-area stations, with PPM data from January. See pages 29-30 and 47-48. Especially 29, there's a lot of stations whose cume is apparently massively underreported with diaries (WMKK for example). Interestingly, some cumes were apparently OVERreported (WBUR and WRKO, for example) which makes one wonder if the ability to establish your branding with listeners will be less important with the objective PPM vs. the subjective diaries.
aaronread said:
We need to be careful about throwing around the word "objective" here. Fact is, NEITHER of these measurement methods are "objective," because neither of them measure actual listening impact. PPM measures exposure and diaries measure recall. If a non-Spanish-speaking person has a PPM and sits in a taxi being driven by a Hispanic person, who is listening to a Spanish-language station, the PPM will record the time spent exposed to the Spanish-language station...but no impression has been made upon the listener, who doesn't understand the language. Similarly, if a diary keeper sits in a doctor's waiting room that has a radio station on at very low volume, it's likely that listening won't be recorded in the diary.
Until Arbitron comes up with the ultimate method to record impressions (a brain implant), they still have no way of measuring a station's (or, more to the point, an advertiser's) impact on the listener. The only advantage PPM has over diaries is that it skirts the issue of relying on imperfect human memory.
It's also WAY too small a sample size to be considered accurate.
0.0005 of the population in the market is carrying meters. I realize they'll never get a "great" sample as getting a couple hundred thousand meters out there would be near impossible, but at least get the number close to 1%. Of that 0.0005 of the people carrying meters only less than 10% of those are cell-phone-only households (even though one in six households in america only have cell phones) which means the numbers for people on the younger side will be WAY off also. 86% of those living in cell-only households are 44 and younger. This means the over 90% polled with landlines are very likely over 45 and the less than 10% with cell only are likely 44 and younger. This isn't one small demo, this is a huge chunk of people that will be very rarely included in PPM numbers. As you see on page 9 of the PDF their target for each age group was 100, they went over 100 on ALL the groups 44+ and missed 100 on all but one of the groups under 44. They are missing all these people that should be counted. I'll agree that PPM is a step in the right direction, but there needs to be more than 2K meters out there to get a good sample size. To get a decent sample for the Boston Market approx 16K meters would need to be used, but from what I've heard the number will stay closer to the 2-3K range. With the low sample size and the not so random (when there are large difference in demographics between cell phone only and landline households you can't say it's random when they select from each group separately and not at the same % of the national avg) polling then I'll never truly believe these #s.
So, per usual, ad rates are set, jobs are lost, stations are downsized, and so on based on a terrible sample size.
Is PPM better, sure....but it hasn't fixed the system yet.
0.0005 of the population in the market is carrying meters. I realize they'll never get a "great" sample as getting a couple hundred thousand meters out there would be near impossible, but at least get the number close to 1%. Of that 0.0005 of the people carrying meters only less than 10% of those are cell-phone-only households (even though one in six households in america only have cell phones) which means the numbers for people on the younger side will be WAY off also. 86% of those living in cell-only households are 44 and younger. This means the over 90% polled with landlines are very likely over 45 and the less than 10% with cell only are likely 44 and younger. This isn't one small demo, this is a huge chunk of people that will be very rarely included in PPM numbers. As you see on page 9 of the PDF their target for each age group was 100, they went over 100 on ALL the groups 44+ and missed 100 on all but one of the groups under 44. They are missing all these people that should be counted. I'll agree that PPM is a step in the right direction, but there needs to be more than 2K meters out there to get a good sample size. To get a decent sample for the Boston Market approx 16K meters would need to be used, but from what I've heard the number will stay closer to the 2-3K range. With the low sample size and the not so random (when there are large difference in demographics between cell phone only and landline households you can't say it's random when they select from each group separately and not at the same % of the national avg) polling then I'll never truly believe these #s.
So, per usual, ad rates are set, jobs are lost, stations are downsized, and so on based on a terrible sample size.
Is PPM better, sure....but it hasn't fixed the system yet.
J
JoshuaC
Guest
I've sat through about 4 months of these in Atlanta now and another important thing to keep in mind is that PPM is going to provide a far more dynamic view of what is going on in a market. By this I mean that you are going to find stuff we used to call "fluke" data happening a lot more often. Since these ratings are the product of actual exposure you are going to find that they are far more wildly affected by events.
i.e. I bet you, come about the tail end of March when Obama-mania really starts wearing off you are going to see WBZ droop. January was still in a lot of the post-election buzz and the inauguration. Now that all of that is over and done with, I would expect a lot of people will go back to just listening to traffic-on-the-3s.
The early "this will save rock radio" buzz seems over-rated. It's great for classic rock, but I haven't seem much evidence of this helping alternative or active much. Will Boston realize it can't support as many rock stations as it has?
I agree with Theo. The sample size is too small. Smaller Sample Size because of longer sample period? Seems reasonable if you are trying to gauge the listening habits of a small group of people, but not for the general populace. They really need to get more of these things out there and really need to work harder to figure out the cell-phone-only problem.
i.e. I bet you, come about the tail end of March when Obama-mania really starts wearing off you are going to see WBZ droop. January was still in a lot of the post-election buzz and the inauguration. Now that all of that is over and done with, I would expect a lot of people will go back to just listening to traffic-on-the-3s.
The early "this will save rock radio" buzz seems over-rated. It's great for classic rock, but I haven't seem much evidence of this helping alternative or active much. Will Boston realize it can't support as many rock stations as it has?
I agree with Theo. The sample size is too small. Smaller Sample Size because of longer sample period? Seems reasonable if you are trying to gauge the listening habits of a small group of people, but not for the general populace. They really need to get more of these things out there and really need to work harder to figure out the cell-phone-only problem.
My theory on the PPM small sample size is this is a power play by Arbitron to get a lot more money out of the 4 major radio corporation's. Obviously this technology has cost Arbitron a chunk of cash. And yet the corporation's have been very hesitant to embrace it or pay a lot more for it. The small sample size seems to be where Arbitron has drawn a line in the sand saying this won't increase without more money. I don't think this will change until the big four cough up some more dough and I think they will eventually break down and give in. If they could get the sample size as large as it was for diaries many of the complaints will go away.
Arbitron told everyone before PPM's where rolled out that the sample size would be 1/3 of the size of the diaries due to cost. The PPM folks will be a part of the survey however for a much longer time period. Arbitron has to refused to improve sample size unless everyone is to pay more than current rates.
L
Laurence Glavin
Guest
Does anyone have any information about the LATEST Boston PPMs? Allaccess.com says they're out today (04/23) but a Google search came up empty.
Z
Zeb Norris
Guest
Being a Rock guy the thing that jumped out at me was WBOS with a 3.6 (6+) beating WBCN, WAAF, and WFNX.
What were they before, a 1.7 12+?
What were they before, a 1.7 12+?
J
JoshuaC
Guest
WBOS is definitely a surprise. I guess Alternative is not dead, it just depends on how you do it.
The fact that so many Classic Hits/Rock/Oldies stations are up in the top ten are not a surprise, but it is always good to see my predictions come true.
The dip of Jammin' is also interesting... is this due to a lack of interest in "urban" music in Boston, or is this due to (as Rapking would probably say) Jammin' simply not being run as well as we had all thought?
The fact that so many Classic Hits/Rock/Oldies stations are up in the top ten are not a surprise, but it is always good to see my predictions come true.
The dip of Jammin' is also interesting... is this due to a lack of interest in "urban" music in Boston, or is this due to (as Rapking would probably say) Jammin' simply not being run as well as we had all thought?
R
rapking
Guest
Jamn ratings drop because all they play is " Kiss me thru the phone " by Soulja boy ( Now 115 times a week . I HATE THIS SONG )JoshuaC said:
JoshuaC said:
I think WBOS sounds great musically. And just like MIKE, the personality in their imaging gives the station just enough life, even without jocks. Therein lies the dilemma, I want to applaud them for a job well done and chastise them for being jockless!?!
rapking said:
" Kiss me thru the phone " by Soulja boy is played 120 times a week on Hot 93.7/Hartford. Must be a New England thing.
R
rapking
Guest
No, 82 times a week on Hot 93.7 Hartford CT ( from Mediabase ) but still to much for me .JerseyDude said:
The owners/programmers wonder why these Urban and Rhythmic stations don't do well under PPM.
Who in his right mind would listen to a station that plays the same songs 100-200 times a week?
Hopefully, some Urban and Rhythmics are gonna be taken off the air because of PPM.
Who in his right mind would listen to a station that plays the same songs 100-200 times a week?
Hopefully, some Urban and Rhythmics are gonna be taken off the air because of PPM.
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