PPM Has Big Programming Implications

[RoddyFreeman]

I attended the Arbitron PPM presentation this morning. My reason for attending was the free breakfast.

Approximately 400 people came to the main session. The audience consisted mainly of radio station general managers and sales managers, salespeople and media buyers. Atlanta had the largest crowd out of all the markets so far, including New York.

The audience was invited to stay for a PD session after the main one. Unfortunately, only 2 PD's attended, Matt Edgar from The Zone and Aaron Cohen from WCLK-FM. The entire group at the PD session numbered about 10. It was given by Gary Marince, VP Programming Services at Arbitron.

Some of the research shown by Mr. Marince blew my mind. The PPM can show what's going on by minute. Several of the findings in the Houston and Philadelphia PPM surveys were:

• Audience declines during spot sets but especially when the jock says something like, "We'll be back after we pay some bills." The audience jumps back up toward the end of the stop set, even before music is playing. Listeners know when stop sets start and stop. (So will playing snippets of songs that follow the stopset alert listeners to an upcoming stopset? Star 94 and Q100 have both been doing that.)

• Ratings on music stations during long music sweeps increase significantly in most cases. Mr. Marince showed us a graph of the minutes in a music sweep on an urban station, with a big decrease in the middle. He played a recording of what was happening then, and the jock was stammering through promoting her personal appearance at a bowling center that weekend.

• The PPM can show what happens with specific records on specific formats and stations. It can show listenership during a record in each month across a year. It indicates when a specific record starts to burn out.

Interestingly, they showed what happened over several months at a CHR station in one of the PPM markets when the Miley Cyrus song was played. People tuned away consistently. So I guess I'm representative of those listeners in this case.

PPM is going to make programmers work harder. Incidentally, Mr. Marince said Sean Hannity has put a programming expert on staff to analyze what works for the show in a PPM world.[/list][/list][/list]

 

[jabba17]

• • • The PPM can show what happens with specific records on specific formats and stations. It can show listenership during a record in each month across a year. It indicates when a specific record starts to burn out
      
      PPM is going to make programmers work harder. Incidentally, Mr. Marince said Sean Hannity has put a programming expert on staff to analyze what works for the show in a PPM world.

About burn and positive/negative ratings, I wonder if PPM will replace ballroom studies. I've always wondered if people automatically pan "uncool" or "guilty pleasure" music, such as hair metal or disco, if asked to explicitly rate a song...and if their listening habits change when they think no one is looking or forget about the PPM and the car windows are up. Some people's listening habits may are gonna get caught nekkid. The flip side is that "untouchable" artists (*cough*BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN*cough*) may start to show more burn than previously, because people won't be afraid to pan them...by hitting Preset #3.

Lastly, the environmental, "listen while you work" Muzak-substitute stations ought to get a BIG pop.

Re: Hannity and talk in general by extension, you mean that programmers, not the personalities, pick the topics on talk stations? Say it isn't so!

Never really thought about it before, to be honest, but I am absolutely NOT surprised. Maybe Boortz will FINALLY get off of his aviation tangents

 

[atlradiofan2]

It seems to me as a listener that the PPM is going to be fantastic.

It makes real measurements and doesn't lie.

I predict...

1. It will determine commercial breaks are too long and cost stations listeners (it is the primary reason i station hop).
2. It will determine long commercial breaks kill am audiences. The ratio of commercial to content is unlistenable.
3. It will accurately measure popularity of songs by market. Hopefully killing the crap songs that get pushed onto stations for various reasons.
4. It will identify morning 'bits' that aren't working. Goodbye norma lee, fingerlakes chat and smell steve.
5. It will help everyone fine tune content and improve the listeners experience.

 

[Slider 8]

1. It will determine commercial breaks are too long and cost stations listeners (it is the primary reason i station hop).

...but will buyers be willing to pay more to offset the loss of minutes? "Hi, we need to triple our rates because we're running less commercials now, not because we've moved up in ratings." Doubt that.

The audience was invited to stay for a PD session after the main one. Unfortunately, only 2 PD's attended

There will be a number of PD openings due to the PPM. "The Same" won't do.

Discuss.

 

[Biz Listener]

Can this data be used to test which commercials chase people and which ones don't? The first few times I heard each of the Six Flags commercials, like the one about the mom so hot that her kids could make s'mores on her, I thought they were as amusing as some deliberate comedy bits. They got old fast, but at first I enjoyed hearing them. Might we see this data used to lead to better (or at least more entertaining) commercials?

As for spots on AM, might this lead to more live reads and fewer canned spots?

 

[jabba17]

1. It will determine commercial breaks are too long and cost stations listeners (it is the primary reason i station hop).

...but will buyers be willing to pay more to offset the loss of minutes? "Hi, we need to triple our rates because we're running less commercials now, not because we've moved up in ratings." Doubt that.

I thought CC's "Less Is More" was determined to be a failure....but then again, maybe it's a situation of "it's not what you do, it's the way that you do it, and that's what gets results"?

Speaking strictly for myself, when I'm button-hopping I find myself getting lulled through the commercial breaks and then flipping when the next song comes on if it's one I don't care for.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

No, advertisers are not going to pay higher rates for less commercials (unless they're buying The River, which is already the case).

I should point out that overall, with the decrease in listening during stop sets, the research showed stop set audiences usually do not decrease below the station's average (of all minutes) audience.

The keys pointed out are not to "advertise" that a stop set is about to kick off; to "lull" listeners into stop sets to the extent possible.

I once read something written by former WLTW-FM/NY PD Jim Ryan. He said the station, which was #1 for years, carefully put together each stop set so that the strongest commercial (creatively) started the set, and that the commercials in each set flow to the extent possible. When agencies see the PPM research, hopefully it will prod them to make better commercials.

If anyone buys radio time, they'll know that The River promises only 4 spots per stopset but demands a much higher cost-per-rating-point than the market as a whole. The River claims that research indicates people tune out after the fourth spot. PPM shows that's not true. More people tune out at the first spot and are back toward the end of the stop set before music starts again.

 

[Biz Listener]

The flip side is that "untouchable" artists (*cough*BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN*cough*) may start to show more burn than previously, because people won't be afraid to pan them...by hitting Preset #3.

Maybe something different will happen, that'll benefit us listeners. Maybe it'll convince programmers that it's not the artist as much as it's the artists' songs. I'm a major Springsteen fan, especially the stuff from his albums in the 70's. Overplaying has totally burned out his hits like "Born to Run", but if they'd play some of the other cuts from his albums, I'd stay tuned in to them to the end.

The same goes for the overplayed and burned out hits of almost every artist or band from the 60's onward. We listeners still like our favorite artists. But we're damn sick and tired of you radio guys burning out some of their songs and never playing their other good ones, just because some lable promo guy didn't push those songs as singles decades ago.

 

[jabba17]

The flip side is that "untouchable" artists (*cough*BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN*cough*) may start to show more burn than previously, because people won't be afraid to pan them...by hitting Preset #3.

Maybe something different will happen, that'll benefit us listeners. Maybe it'll convince programmers that it's not the artist as much as it's the artists' songs. I'm a major Springsteen fan, especially the stuff from his albums in the 70's. Overplaying has totally burned out his hits like "Born to Run", but if they'd play some of the other cuts from his albums, I'd stay tuned in to them to the end.

The same goes for the overplayed and burned out hits of almost every artist or band from the 60's onward. We listeners still like our favorite artists. But we're damn sick and tired of you radio guys burning out some of their songs and never playing their other good ones, just because some lable promo guy didn't push those songs as singles decades ago.

That's an excellent point. Maybe PPMs will benefit songs that are by well-known artists but don't do well (due to poor recognition) in a ballroom study. Anyone have any old numbers from when Z93 went on their "classic deep cuts" kick about 10(?) years ago? How did that do?