PPM...just maybe...

[greengene]

I'm sure this post will upset some of you, but maybe, just maybe the PPM is actually reflecting the correct listening habits of some minority formats. And isn't that the whole reason the industry is moving to electronic measurement...to get it right? Okay, tear my head off, but it needed to be said.

 

[johnqdoe]

It's gonna be VASTLY superior to diary methodology....but you'll get some inconsistancies when a wearer is ina store or business playing a station they themselves didn't tune into. I think it'll hurt the top stations. I just have a feeling some reported "listening" has probably been inflated by folks that just drew lines across the board for their fav station.

 

[LaidBackJack]

based on the flurry of lawsuits and FCC filings by government entities...maybe not. If PPM were REALLY such a good thing, would there be so much opposition, even calls for FCC investigations?

 

[eyewitness news]

Regardless of whether the technology is perfect, PPM is teaching us some stuff already...

Like:
Average number off tune in's per day and length of tune in time: 7 times per day for 9 minutes each time is the average in many markets.

Cume now matters...all stations with PPM have gone up dramtically in cume, sometimes double....

Small sample size...and people stay in the panel for up to two years.....scary.

From a practical point of view you can see weekly ratings every monday morning and track hours and tune' ins.

As for Ethnic listening.....it may very well impact urban stations negatively, but think about the 50 year old white guy who walks into a mall store playing a hip hop station...he just became a cume person for that station.

I agree with John Q however.....whatever the problems....it will be more accurate than diaries.

One of the most interesting aspects of this new technology, is that radio has been screaming for it for a while and now it's here and many are saying the sky is falling.

bottom line for me.....having a device that picks up actual listening is preferrable to someone sitting at the kitchen table at 8 pm trying to remember what stations, if any, they listened to for the past week.

 

[quadraphonic]

I don't see how PPM can't be better, unless people find a way to corrupt it and scrape money off the top [which they always do].
It's barely out of the gate though, and with lawsuits and whatnot that seems to be what some people are doing....

 

[awsherrill]

As for Ethnic listening.....it may very well impact urban stations negatively, but think about the 50 year old white guy who walks into a mall store playing a hip hop station...he just became a cume person for that station.

Do the mall stores even play the radio anymore? I thought the ASCAP/BMI police had pretty much put a stop to that, in the larger stores anyway.

 

[johnqdoe]

As for Ethnic listening.....it may very well impact urban stations negatively, but think about the 50 year old white guy who walks into a mall store playing a hip hop station...he just became a cume person for that station.

Do the mall stores even play the radio anymore? I thought the ASCAP/BMI police had pretty much put a stop to that, in the larger stores anyway.

The 17 year old cashier at Hot Topic isn't gonna care about ASCAP/BMI rules. That same theory is true for office buildings and things. If I'm sititng at the doctor's office for an hour waiting and they have some station playing....boom, they get an hour's credit. The small sample size,a nd length of participation is a concern too. It's great if you get someone that loves your station....if they hate you...then well...but it's still better than what we have now.

 

[quadraphonic]

How does the PPM recognize what station you're listening to while you're out and about*?

*Had to throw in a radio-sounding term

 

[Christopher Chenn]

Audio signature. Kinda like face recognition for audio.

 

[Sniffthamic]

I agree with all you guys who say it monitors what you do and steals all your credit card numbers. Is this really where our bidness is going???????? Fa realz?? I don't want no part of that unleass I'm getting a big cut in on the action

 

[MaskMan]

PPM ain't gonna be perfect, but it's gotta be better than the diary method!!!! I think because it's a whole new way of measurement that it's just going to take a while to learn how to read it all. For instance, you'll just have to take into consideration that a lot of incidental listening is going to be factored in. That's going to make the cume larger and lower the TSL. Doesn't mean that the typical listeners to that station listen a lot less, there's just more sampling involved in the average.

As for malls, things have become way more sophisticated and very few stores still play the radio. It does happen, but not nearly so much as 10 years ago. The big chain stores dictate the type of music that's played because they know what fits their demographics. It's highly researched and they play music that makes people buy! They're not going to let some hourly part-time employee play what THEY want! Doctors offices are the same. If they're small, they might play a radio station, but most clinics have some kind of sophisticated health radio thing going.

 

[vchimpanzee]

As for Ethnic listening.....it may very well impact urban stations negatively, but think about the 50 year old white guy who walks into a mall store playing a hip hop station...he just became a cume person for that station.

Do the mall stores even play the radio anymore? I thought the ASCAP/BMI police had pretty much put a stop to that, in the larger stores anyway.

See "Muzak" on the "Adult contemporary" board to see what they're doing in one mall's common areas. Not stores. Common areas.

 

[Sniffthamic]

All the mall walkers have the stereo headphones on and are now on skates. Thought ya knowed.