• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

PPM Question

R

radioprofessor

Guest
Interesting question out of Seattle and the Houston board may have the answer, in my humble view. A top group of stations in Seattle suffered a fire and lost ability to encode for a number of days, but were on the air. When the numbers were released for the week all stations dropped and one dropped from number one to number 12 in the prime demos, which is expected if you dont encode for a day or two. Several on the LA board and Seattle board suggested this happened in Houston at one point. Did Arbitron discount the numbers or remove that week from the stations total when it happened here? I live in LA and am a consultant but find this question creates an intriguing parameter. Houston seems to have the most experience in the PPM parameter and I find this board as a better than average intelligent group of posters compared to other markets, in my humble view.
 
radioprofessor said:
Interesting question out of Seattle and the Houston board may have the answer, in my humble view. A top group of stations in Seattle suffered a fire and lost ability to encode for a number of days, but were on the air. When the numbers were released for the week all stations dropped and one dropped from number one to number 12 in the prime demos, which is expected if you dont encode for a day or two. Several on the LA board and Seattle board suggested this happened in Houston at one point. Did Arbitron discount the numbers or remove that week from the stations total when it happened here? I live in LA and am a consultant but find this question creates an intriguing parameter. Houston seems to have the most experience in the PPM parameter and I find this board as a better than average intelligent group of posters compared to other markets, in my humble view.
Click to expand...

Houston's only incident, that I am aware of, is Hurricane Ike in September of 2008. Not only did it disrupt many stations, it disrupted people's ability to charge and use their PPM devices. So the measurement was suspended and no reports issued for September and October.

Arbitron believes that, since there are no multi-month survey periods and no rolling averages of many months, that any problem will be flushed out within at most 4 weeks, and that the weeklies on either side of a problem will show the true level of listening. Otherwise, every technical problem will cause stations to be averaged, invisible, etc. and the process loses credibility.

That's my analysis, not Arbitron's, though. But having been involved directly since the original Philadelphia tests 6 years ago, I have never seen it suggested that any special treatment be given.
 
Makes complete sense, in my humble view. Appreciate the response.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom