PPM

[ChiefEngineer]

One radio mogul noted the demise of anything urban related to the former weighting of African American diaries. Hispanic and Regional Mexican have done poorly. Christian and K Love look for all the world like the dismal Love 98 numbers. Believe me, K Love sounds much better.

Another notable indicated that PPM is not the answer but possibly a combination of diary and PPM.

Given the tanking of Bob and Tom are they headed out the door? PPM will hit markets down to 75 reportedly, then grow from there.

WIBC. Down. WFMS down. Hank up. B 105.7 has done marginally for years, now number one. Nothing changed other than measurement. (filling the diary out late is now - I left the decoder in my office set to my favorite station).

Reportedly the first 10 encoders went to Monument Circle. Can't pay the employees left leaning to listen to Limbaugh. Hank and B 105.7 are liked w/in the building. This is an unsubstantiated rumor but from the numbers it could be plausible.

 

[radio_radio]

Reportedly the first 10 encoders went to Monument Circle. Can't pay the employees left leaning to listen to Limbaugh. Hank and B 105.7 are liked w/in the building. This is an unsubstantiated rumor but from the numbers it could be plausible.

Is it safe to assume Chief that your cheese has finally slipped all the way off of its cracker?

 

[Dingy Harry]

You can't actually leave a meter on the desk and walk away. Well, you could, but the meter would cease to record. There is a very sensitive motion detector in the meter. If it does not pick up motion (I can't remember the interval.) it stops recording. Panelists are incentivized to keep the meter active with "points" that they can exchange for cash or merchandise.

I assume you jest about meters on the Circle. No company is going to risk being delisted, the bad PR, and embarrassment of defending being a "cheater" to clients.

Actually the Cumulus stations were kicking tale in October. WFMS and WJJK were through the roof.

 

[ChiefEngineer]

Allegories related to cheese are always acceptable to Wisonsinians.

If one were to find some PPM decoders they would not set them on a desk they would take them to a nursing home and hook them to comatose patients with some expectancy of life, install a rotating system with all client stations that covered all a Licensee's stations, then recover them at the end of the rating period. (If WFNI were part of this it would have to be in Zionsville or Boone County but except for Leigh DeNoon there are few educated persons in Boone County)

The comments were trying to make sense out of a senseless survey. If you remove any possible means of explaining the process then the impossible is the explanation.

I am somewhat concerned from a radio perspective that WJJK has done so well. No jocks, no ratings before, no wonder radio is going where it is.

WFNI. Traditionally a 1.0 since it lost it's programming. ESPN a ratings leader? No. Now it has more ratings than it has ever had.

Hank. It has never had the ratings it should have. Lots of work on it. The best morning team in town Wank and Obryan broken up. The morning show is not "half" of what it was and they jump in ratings.

WFMS. All the people who fixed the radios for their elderly relatives have to wonder why their numbers dropped.

B105.7. Jeff for years tried to figure out how to buy WTLC and jettison the programming. Then he operated it for years as a museum for WENS. Just having it was like a sign to Mickey Maur that he would see everyday. "WTPI - Ha!" "Hey Mickey remember partnering with WENS?" NOW IT'S NUMBER ONE? Sorry about being loud. I got carried away.

WFBQ. Bob and Tom are what they are. I thought about making a format where I laughed at my own jokes all day just to capture the essence. Now look at their numbers.

WTLC, WHHH, WTLC-FM, 107.1 Radio Three Guys with funny hats and burros. Black and Hispanic or Regional Mexican ratings. Univision is the number 4 network using actual listenership in Neilson housholds. In every PPM market black and Latino listeners don't exist. It is improbable that even with diary weighting the drops that have been noted are reliable estimates of listening.

The PPM has clearly been a study in things that make no sense. This discussion is to gain depth into what stations that are Titanic like in their sea voyage are doing and how they came to this point?

This is a clear indication the two ratings methods are : 1) Evidence of one or the other being totally flawed and worthless; 2) Not capable of measuring true ratings; and 3) Evidence changes are needed.

Again - a combination of the two?

 

[RDO]

The diary is/was flawed. PPM, even with it's problems, is a much more accurate view of radio listenership. Again, it's too bad many good stations had to die because of poor performance as shown by the faulty diary numbers.

 

[undertheradar]

Chief,
Why is it so easy for you to believe the PPM data is flawed? Take another look at the 6+ numbers on this site, and several things jump from the page that are much more likely to be closer to reality than diary measurement ever reflected:

1. Listenership isn't down - there's actually significantly more Cume reporting now that the meter is picking up actual tagged frequencies, as people are exposed to more of them. WFMS' cume is the highest it's ever been, as is B105, TLC-FM, and yes, HANK and JJK too.
Even the stations that are down share-wise are still delivering larger cumes than ever, including Q, NOU, RZX, and yes even ZPL and NTR for that matter.
Every single station I've referred to now have higher cume numbers than FMS, Q, and IBC ever had as top rated stations during diary days.

2. All of this cume reflects higher duplication, reflects PPM panelists being measured down to their P4, even P5 preferences. I certainly believe it more likely that radio's audience samples across the dial more in real time, rather than believe the largest portions of the audience sit still on one frequency for hours at a time [as diary responses led us to believe].

3. Overall audiences aren't down. Share and AQH RTG are more evenly spread, averaged out. TSL is lower because the station that used to enjoy primarily P1 and P2 audience preference reporting in diaries is now also capturing P4 and P5 audience on the meters - higher cume, more turnover, lower TSL, lower quarter hour levels.

PPM documents much more precisely audience for suburban stations, audience for non-coms, audience for CC stations, even audience measurement for H.S. stations. I find this a much more accurate representation of actual audience habits than one week diaries dependent almost exclusively on human recall and habits.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

The diary is/was flawed. PPM, even with it's problems, is a much more accurate view of radio listenership. Again, it's too bad many good stations had to die because of poor performance as shown by the faulty diary numbers.

At the very least, it bypasses a major shortcoming of the past : human memory. I can barely remember what I had for breakfast at the end of the day. I'm in radio & pay closer attention to it than most listeners. And at the end of the day, I can't begin to tell you with any accuracy what stations I cumed during my day nor how long I listened to each. But the PPM decoder can with split hair accuracy. IMHO, it's a monumental step forward in audience measurement technology.

 

[Dingy Harry]

Amen, Bob. The truth is not always pretty.

 

[butlerguy03]

The PPM has eliminated one daily and repetitve task - telling the audience who you are. Programming decides the PPM numbers, not savvy marketing or better imaging. That may be one key to WJJK's jump - probably not a sure P1 type of station, but is probably a leader in the market as a P2, P3 or P4.

 

[BobOnTheJob]

The PPM has eliminated one daily and repetitve task - telling the audience who you are. Programming decides the PPM numbers, not savvy marketing or better imaging. That may be one key to WJJK's jump - probably not a sure P1 type of station, but is probably a leader in the market as a P2, P3 or P4.

Partially agree...the listener doesn't have to have WJJK repeated after every song to get PPM credit, but for word of mouth from that listener to the water cooler gang, wouldn't that 'hammer it home' message still be beneficial?

 

[butlerguy03]

Partially agree...the listener doesn't have to have WJJK repeated after every song to get PPM credit, but for word of mouth from that listener to the water cooler gang, wouldn't that 'hammer it home' message still be beneficial?

Obviously word of mouth is the most important form of advertising. I also think that the promotions department becomes even more important by getting out to the right events that give the station maximum exposure to the target demographic. Instead of sending young, college-aged, blonde girls to be your promotions team, maybe we'll get back to actually having the talent at each promotions event.

 

[bigtime]

Sending on-air people out to promotions is ideal, but with budget cuts, many stations find themselves with very little 'talent" left to make appearances. At one time almost every station had at least 5 full time on-air people and a few partimers. Now, not so much.

 

[N_D_Radioguy]

I am somewhat concerned from a radio perspective that WJJK has done so well. No jocks, no ratings before, no wonder radio is going where it is.

Before when? -- the station has been hanging around 6 or 7 the final few years of the diary world.

No jocks? -- really? When was the last time you listened? WJJK is fully staffed 5a-Midnight, 7-days-a-week.

 

[ChiefEngineer]

It isn't as much that I believe the data is flawed. It is coming to terms with the differences in listening compared to the diary.

Building an industry on diary revelations then finding them almost polar changes to ppm gives me concern that belief in any system is flawed.

 

[undertheradar]

The real travesty [opinion of one] is that an entire industry adhered to a WEEKLY HANDWRITTEN DAIRY for its research with Biblical tenacity well beyond it's shelf life. Handwritten research should have died decades ago.

In this day and age, when technology is obsolete almost as soon as it starts to gain some traction in the market, PPM may not be without its flaws, but it puts some credibility back into our industry. No wonder so many renewed their cries that terrestrial radio was on death's door; more than any direct technological competitor our own rudimentary research undermined our credibility as a viable medium.