Question Regarding Market Boundry

[davideduardo]

Re: Ah the Media Research Council

----> Well having the media companies AND the advertisers involved is a system of checks and balances. Why would the advertisers agree to something that is self-serving to the media companies, and vise versa?

Good point. But look who is missing from the triangle: listeners, new technology (except our friends at Microsoft), etc.

Ratings are done for only one purpose, and that is to create a metric for the evaluation of advertising buys. It is not intended to "advance the art" as that is the job of research companies. The MRC only approves methodology and execution.

The MRC is made up of people who have one thing in common: doctorates or advanced degrees in sampling, statistics and polling. Many of them, like George Ivie, are also professors or lecturers at the college level in the subject.

The annual audits of electronic media are done by "auditors" with a thorough grouding in the disciplies involved. Listeners would have no clue about this.

Advertisers like Anheuser Busch have huge vested interests in preserving the status quo of big business media. Without a robust commercial delivery system, how can they sell trainloads of beer?

So what is surprising about this? Advertisers want to make sure that thier ad buys can be quantified correctly. Whether it is the ABC for circulation or Nielsen or Arbitron, they want a guarantee that the survey is done with approved methodology and that the day to day work is consistent with the approved methodolgy. That is all they want or need.

>I mean, if we can't trust America's largest broadcasting companies to be honest about how good they are at delivering audience, who can we trust?

----->I'm sorry, I'm not sure what you're referring to here.

We have here an industry that measures itself, and comes up with the brilliant, shining conclusion that Americans love their radio and consume just as much of it as they did in 1955.

Huh? Arbitron is not owned by the radio industry, and the MRC, as far as I know from the last list of the board, has nobody from radio on its board. Almost all the folks who approve methodology come from the marketing or academic side, and the audits are done purely by people who have no media affiliations. The reason for the MRC is to protect advertisers.

The radio industry - as represented by El Pluperfecto's posts, in this little corner of the world - proudly boasts that the sale of 14 million satellite radios by Christmas,

That figure has been scaled down considerably, and the Q2 earnings call for XM where it was discussed is available online. As one analyst said, satellite has milked the early adopters and trendsetters, and has hit a brick wall with value seekers, who should be the next group to adopt any new technology. The first two will pay for novelty and newness, despite less than perfect utility. The value seekers (all these are standard marketing terms) will not accpept a premise that fails on the utility vs. $ equation.

streaming internet audio, Cable TV audio, Sirius on DISH, XM on DirectTV, Music Choice on digital cable, 40 million IPods, MP3 ripping on computers, and a total abandonement of radio by college students and below ....

.... all of this has absolutely no impact on radio listening.

So far, personal music collection devices, starting with the 45 rpm player and including cassettes, 8-tracks, CDs and iPods have not impacted radio listening. This has been seen in the Arbitron numbers.

11 to 12 million satellite receivers, 90% of which are in cars, only creates the functional equivalent of 3.5 million radio listeners... about 0.6% of shares. And the Arbitron tabs show that satellite is getting somewhat below a 0.5 share, so the data matches. As we know, satellite listeners do not listen exclusively to satelle in the bulk of cases. Just look at the diaries, and you see that XM or Sirius listeners also listen to terrestrial radio.

The biggest two cometitors right now for free radio are longer work hours (more than half of all Americans can not listen while working) and video games... over 100 million installs, more than satellite by a factor of over 10, more than satellite TV, etc.

By the way, TV viewing is not up that significantly... it is just fragmented due to having more channels. Your car does not use more gas if there are 4 gas stations at an intersection, right?

I don't buy it. Anyhone with a brain wouldn't buy it.

You have an uncanny ability to disbelieve things that have considerable empirical evidence to support them. Did you have problems as a child obeying instructions?

 

[davideduardo]

Re: Ah the Media Research Council

--->Listeners being a part of an organization that determines and audits how media is rated wouldn't make sense. That's like having car drivers involved in choosing what machine the city puts on the side of the road to do traffic counts. Just my opinion...

This isn't counting cars, it's a billion-dollar industry that relies on highly-proprietary, secret data to manage airwaves that belong to you and me.

Ratings are used to place advertising. Period.

All businesses have proprietary data. In the case of Arbitron, if you qualify as a user, meaning being an ad buyer or seller, you can subscribe to the services based on signing a contract.

Anything of value has a price. Claiming "secret and proprietary" is stupid, Hans. Why would a company like Arbitron give away the data which is its only product?

The listener has no need to see detailed ratings, any more than they have a right to see the financial statements of a radio or TV station.

On the other hand, ratings benefit the listener in several ways:
1. Ratings reassure the ad buyer, allowing the ad based radio model to continue.
2. Without ratings, radio revenues in larger markets would plummet, as has been seen... with programming suffering.
3. Ratings guide stations as a report card guides students.

 

[zumahans]

Re: Ah the Media Research Council

------>Ratings are used to place advertising. Period.

No, you use them here to justify your arguments that radio is alive, vibrant and healthy.

------->All businesses have proprietary data.
We are not talking about businesses, David, we are talking about your selective use of statistics that we cannot have acces to.

----> Claiming "secret and proprietary" is stupid, Hans.

No, it is accurate.

----->The listener has no need to see detailed ratings, any more than they have a right to see the financial statements of a radio or TV station.

The SEC might disagree with you, there, DE.

------->On the other hand, ratings benefit the listener in several ways:
1. Ratings reassure the ad buyer, allowing the ad based radio model to continue.

Exactly. Ratings are designed for one thing and one thing only - to perpetuate the existing, malignant corporate broadcasting system.

 

[davideduardo]

Re: Ah the Media Research Council

------>Ratings are used to place advertising. Period.

No, you use them here to justify your arguments that radio is alive, vibrant and healthy.

------->All businesses have proprietary data.
We are not talking about businesses, David, we are talking about your selective use of statistics that we cannot have acces to.

----> Claiming "secret and proprietary" is stupid, Hans.

No, it is accurate.

----->The listener has no need to see detailed ratings, any more than they have a right to see the financial statements of a radio or TV station.

The SEC might disagree with you, there, DE.

------->On the other hand, ratings benefit the listener in several ways:
1. Ratings reassure the ad buyer, allowing the ad based radio model to continue.

Exactly. Ratings are designed for one thing and one thing only - to perpetuate the existing, malignant corporate broadcasting system.

Ratings are used commercially (excluding idle chit-chat like this) to quantify ad buys. Very secondarily, they are used to evaluate the success of programming.

The SEC can only require public corporations to provide overall financials, and they can not require those of indvisual stations to be revealed, any more than they can require P&G to say what percentage of revenues come from one particular soap brand.

Ratings are not designed to perpeturate anything. They are designed to quantify radio or TV usage so ad rates can be set. Every ratings company ever to be has used the same methodology, which is basically a random probability sample of a univers (usually a market) projected into the whole. Hooper, Pulse, Birch, Audits & Surveys, Burke, etc., have all used very similar methods. All that is desired is to find out how many people are listeneing for every ad dollar spent.

The world is full of data you can not have for free. I told you how you could get access. It's up to you. Or, if you are so connected, find someone with access to the data and have them run radio usage trending for 5 and 10 years in, let's say, 10 to 20 markets and you can find the same conclusions I did.

Hey, even the newspaper is not free. The only thing different is that each data source has a specific price.

 

[zumahans]

Re: Ah the Media Research Council

----->Ratings are done for only one purpose, and that is to create a metric for the evaluation of advertising buys. It is not intended to "advance the art" as that is the job of research companies. The MRC only approves methodology and execution.

Got news for you, dude, particularly in smaller markets, ratings is done to tweak formats all the time.


----->---->streaming internet audio, Cable TV audio, Sirius on DISH, XM on DirectTV, Music Choice on digital cable, 40 million IPods, MP3 ripping on computers, and a total abandonement of radio by college students and below ....

.... all of this has absolutely no impact on radio listening.

You diariers tell you that? Your diaries are therefore impeached.

---->11 to 12 million satellite receivers, 90% of which are in cars, only creates the functional equivalent of 3.5 million radio listeners... about 0.6% of shares. And the Arbitron tabs show that satellite is getting somewhat below a 0.5 share, so the data matches. As we know, satellite listeners do not listen exclusively to satelle in the bulk of cases. Just look at the diaries, and you see that XM or Sirius listeners also listen to terrestrial radio.

An assumption on top of a guess, extrapolating dubious numbers to begin with.

---->The biggest two cometitors right now for free radio are longer work hours (more than half of all Americans can not listen while working) and video games... over 100 million installs, more than satellite by a factor of over 10, more than satellite TV, etc.

But oyur ratings show no drop in listenikng? How can that be?

----->By the way, TV viewing is not up that significantly... it is just fragmented due to having more channels. Your car does not use more gas if there are 4 gas stations at an intersection, right?

No, but your consumption of Shell goes down if you buy an electric car.

---->You have an uncanny ability to disbelieve things that have considerable empirical evidence to support them.

Evidence from you, using your industry's research, as you interpret it, is as queer as a three dolalr bill.

---->Did you have problems as a child obeying instructions?

No, Davey, one of my instructions was to think for myself and look thru bullcrock. Which is why you are in my sights.

 

[davideduardo]

Re: Ah the Media Research Council

----->Ratings are done for only one purpose, and that is to create a metric for the evaluation of advertising buys. It is not intended to "advance the art" as that is the job of research companies. The MRC only approves methodology and execution.

Got news for you, dude, particularly in smaller markets, ratings is done to tweak formats all the time.

In an earlier post, I mentioned that there was a secondary use of ratings as a "report card" on programming. Ratings can not tell you how to program, only how well you porgrammed in the past.

----->---->streaming internet audio, Cable TV audio, Sirius on DISH, XM on DirectTV, Music Choice on digital cable, 40 million IPods, MP3 ripping on computers, and a total abandonement of radio by college students and below ....

.... all of this has absolutely no impact on radio listening.

You diariers tell you that? Your diaries are therefore impeached.

The diaries, wne tabulated, show radio cimong in 18-54 nearly the same as 20 years ago, and time spent listening off less than 10%, very solid for all the other leisure itme activities Americans are being given. Any predictions of the destruction of radio based on any one thing is wrong. Studies done by entities not related to radio have shown iPod heavy owners tend to use more radio than non-users, in fact.

---->11 to 12 million satellite receivers, 90% of which are in cars, only creates the functional equivalent of 3.5 million radio listeners... about 0.6% of shares. And the Arbitron tabs show that satellite is getting somewhat below a 0.5 share, so the data matches. As we know, satellite listeners do not listen exclusively to satelle in the bulk of cases. Just look at the diaries, and you see that XM or Sirius listeners also listen to terrestrial radio.

An assumption on top of a guess, extrapolating dubious numbers to begin with.

There are no extrapolations. Just real listening numbers. Again, subscribe to Arbitron and you can get them too. I'll bet you could not even answer basic questions on Arbitron methodology, since you make inaccurate statements constantly.

---->The biggest two cometitors right now for free radio are longer work hours (more than half of all Americans can not listen while working) and video games... over 100 million installs, more than satellite by a factor of over 10, more than satellite TV, etc.

But oyur ratings show no drop in listenikng? How can that be?

Cume flat, TSL off only slightly over 20 years. How is that? Simple: people have always, in the last 50 years or so, watched TV. They just have more choices, but do not speand tha many more hours. Similarly, collecting music is something done for 50 or 60 years as well, but the technology has repoaced one device with another. But time spent listening to personal collections is not much different.

----->By the way, TV viewing is not up that significantly... it is just fragmented due to having more channels. Your car does not use more gas if there are 4 gas stations at an intersection, right?

No, but your consumption of Shell goes down if you buy an electric car.

Bad comparison. Radio is the process of litening to something, anything, on free radio. News, talk, etc. Even introducitons of new formats do not change radio listening, they just move the stations used.

All other things you mention, liek cable and such or iPods, are simply changes in something at least 50 years old. And you do not even mention the one option that has affected radio: video gaming. Over 100 million users, and video games sell more in dollars than recorded musikc today. You are aiming at a brick thinking it is a squirrel... wrong target, Hans.

---->You have an uncanny ability to disbelieve things that have considerable empirical evidence to support them.

Evidence from you, using your industry's research, as you interpret it, is as queer as a three dolalr bill.

Actually, Arbitron is not "my industry's research." Just as radio gets listeners, but lissteners do not pay for it, radio pays for ratings, but advertisers use them. There is no value in ratings commensurate with the cost other than sales use." And since all stations are rasted, no indivudual one benefits alone because of the fact that rastings are done... the entire field of stations does.

A couple of things motivate you:
1. You don't believe radio ratings, despite them being stringently monitored.
2. You do not like current radio programming, or most of it
3. By assumption, you did not get ahead in radio so you are blaming those of us who did.

So, at the end of the day, it is all about YOU. Your personal likes and dislikes, unsupported by any facts. And you wish to condemn an industry of over 100,000 persons just because you do not like what we do.

 

[Loverboy]

Cume flat, TSL off only slightly over 20 years. How is that? Simple: people have always, in the last 50 years or so, watched TV. They just have more choices, but do not speand tha many more hours. Similarly, collecting music is something done for 50 or 60 years as well, but the technology has repoaced one device with another. But time spent listening to personal collections is not much different.

Yes, time spent listening to personal music hasn't changed any. I remember those images of folks in the 60's & 70's jogging with their phonographs. It was a terrible sight.

Can you find a statistic that backs up common sense at some point??

 

[davideduardo]

Cume flat, TSL off only slightly over 20 years. How is that? Simple: people have always, in the last 50 years or so, watched TV. They just have more choices, but do not speand tha many more hours. Similarly, collecting music is something done for 50 or 60 years as well, but the technology has repoaced one device with another. But time spent listening to personal collections is not much different.

Yes, time spent listening to personal music hasn't changed any. I remember those images of folks in the 60's & 70's jogging with their phonographs. It was a terrible sight.

Can you find a statistic that backs up common sense at some point??

In the 70's, there were lots of portable cassette devices. The first Walkman was a cassette player, not a CD player. Of course, it helped if you had actually been through the era.

 

[zumahans]

In the 70's, there were lots of portable cassette devices. The first Walkman was a cassette player, not a CD player. Of course, it helped if you had actually been through the era.

Of course, it would help if your little put-down was based on accurate facts. Which it is not.

The Walkman was invented in 1979. Critical mass came in the '80s.

Portable casette recorders prior to that were generally mono, generally low-quality, and certainly not used for jogging.

In fact, in the late 1970s, most FM radio transistors radios were still mono. Stereo gear of any sort was big, not carryable.

Most consumer tape machines in the 70s were 8-track, David, and were anything but portable.

[EDIT]

There was no portable music device in the 1970s other than transistor radios. There certainly was no listener-programmable source. Even in the 1980s, custom cassette walkman tapes meant expensive decks, turntables, record libraries and a nice setup to mix it together.

Believe me, I was doing it as soon as it was affordable, even to a yuppie like me with disposable income. I was mixing party tapes for Walkman devices by about 1985, and that was about when radio began becoming less important to me and millions of other people of my generation.

Once, again, David, you made a mistake, and used it to snidely insult someone who made a valid point.

This point, like others, will likely be lost on you.

[EDIT*]

Arrogance, meet ignorance. You have a common temple.

[EDIT=inflammatory language]
[EDIT=personal attack]

 

[zumahans]

Cume flat, TSL off only slightly over 20 years. How is that? Simple: people have always, in the last 50 years or so, watched TV. They just have more choices, but do not speand tha many more hours. Similarly, collecting music is something done for 50 or 60 years as well, but the technology has repoaced one device with another. But time spent listening to personal collections is not much different.

Yes, time spent listening to personal music hasn't changed any. I remember those images of folks in the 60's & 70's jogging with their phonographs. It was a terrible sight.

Can you find a statistic that backs up common sense at some point??

No no no, haven't you been paying attention to the professor?

Radio listening habits, such as TSL, are EXACTLY THE SAME today as they were in 1954, when David Eduardo programmed his first radio station in Los Banos del Porniculia.

The advent of computers. video games, satellite radio, MP3 devices, internet downloads, Napster, etc. have not lessened the percentage of time psent listening to radio.

How do we know this? The MRC, which is dominated by broadcasting companies, tells us so. And since the MRC standards are secret, and since the ratings are proprietary, the Radio Gods have given us El Pluperfecto to tell us how things really are.

Be thankful for the knowledge he imparts, and sleep well knowing that corporate radio is alive, well, and positioned to monopolize American listening for at least the next 2 or 3 years.

 

[semoochie]

I got my first cassette recorder in 1967. I'd never seen one before and it was a birthday gift. I never did own an 8-track player. I had at least 1 cassette deck in the 70s. My second one had built in FM Dolby. When was that?

 

[davideduardo]

Your arrogance is only matched by your ignorance.

The Walkman was invented in 1979. Critical mass came in the '80s.

What did I say? The Walkman started as a cassete player, not a CD player. This is correct.

Portable casette recorders prior to that were generally mono, generally low-quality, and certainly not used for jogging.

Cassette players started appearing in the mid to late 60's, and there were portable ones that one could carry about starting well before the Walkman, but they were just bulkier.

Prior to about 1977 or 1978, most radio listening was to AM, so the cassette compared very favorably with the "fidelity du jour."

Also, not very many people jogged in the 70's. Fitness was not yeat a "thing."

In fact, in the late 1970s, most FM radio transistors radios were still mono. Stereo gear of any sort was big, not carryable.

So? Much more than half of all FM listening TODAY is mono.

Most consumer tape machines in the 70s were 8-track, David, and were anything but portable.

I used to buy a new cassette recorder each time I went to Miami in the 60's. I had one in about 1968 that had an AM and FM radio, and a carrying strap. It was the size of a big DVD case (like the TV show seasons are packaged in) and I would carry these things all over with me to tape stations.

I never had an 8-Track, and did not even see one until they were "collectors' items" as they did not make much of an impact in most countries of the world.

Oh, yes, David. I lived thru that era, here in the United States, unlike you. Perhaps your LIFE magazines were delayed by the 3d class llama mail in whatever godforsaken pisshole you were living in.

I lived the entire period from 1971 to 1980 in the US.

Once, again, David, you made a mistake, and used it to snidely insult someone who made a valid point.

A mistake? Go on eBay and see all the late 60's and 70's cassette machines that are available.

Hell, in 1971 Gates / Harris had a fully automated (with tones like a Cart Machine) broadcast cassette machine.

This point, like others, will likely be lost on you.

David, for someone so smart, you sure are post some ass-bleedingly stupid posts.

You know, my first portable radio was a Zenith Trans Oceanic. At the time, people marveled at its protability. It must have weighed 20 lbs with the big batteries in it. Why did people think it was ultra-portable? Because it was portable compared to a console radio. People thought the original Compaq was protable, because it was when compared to an IBM PC. It must have weighed in at around 25 lbs, but it was portable by the standards of the day.

You are applying standards of today to devices of other eras. The least you could do is play fair.

 

[zumahans]

Sorry, David, I went through and rewrote my opinion while you were responding to it.

But your basuic argument is wrong, just wrong.

No one was carrying "Walkmen" in the 1960s and 1970s, as you erroneously retorted.

For you to blindly maintain that radio listening habits today are unchanged over five decades of technological changes flies in the face of the personal experience of anyone, and common sense.

 

[zumahans]

LBoy--->Yes, time spent listening to personal music hasn't changed any. I remember those images of folks in the 60's & 70's jogging with their phonographs. It was a terrible sight. Can you find a statistic that backs up common sense at some point??


Daveyboy---->In the 70's, there were lots of portable cassette devices. The first Walkman was a cassette player, not a CD player. Of course, it helped if you had actually been through the era.

Repeat: there were no cassette devices suitable for jogging in the 1970s. The first Walkman was invented in 1979 and not sold in the US until Christmas of that year. It was the Walkman that introduced personal, stereo music selected by the listener, instead of some creep in a radio station.

David, stop changing the subject. The very notion that radio listening habits are unchanged, as you ask us to accept on faith, is absurd.

 

[davideduardo]

Sorry, David, I went through and rewrote my opinion while you were responding to it.

But your basuic argument is wrong, just wrong.

No one was carrying "Walkmen" in the 1960s and 1970s, as you erroneously retorted.

For you to blindly maintain that radio listening habits today are unchanged over five decades of technological changes flies in the face of the personal experience of anyone, and common sense.

My only statement was this: "In the 70's, there were lots of portable cassette devices. The first Walkman was a cassette player, not a CD player. " (you can see it 6 or 7 messages below, too. That was ALL I said.

There WERE lots of cassette devices in the 70's. THis is true.

The first Walkman WAS a cassette device, not a CD player. This is also true.

Nowhere did I say when the Walkman was introduced. Nowhere did I say they were used in the 60's or 70's. Nowhere did I even mention the 60's.

You took my simple statement about cassette devices being prevalent in the 70's and built a multi-tiered lie about what you think I said, and then posted it. That is not a moral, honest or professional thing to do. One thing is to disagree on ratings, the radio business model, etc., and another is to post something you state "I said" which does not even closely resemble my statement.

Again: "In the 70's, there were lots of portable cassette devices. The first Walkman was a cassette player, not a CD player. " Both things are true. In fact, there were portable cassette devices in the 60's! And the first Walkman was a cassete device, not a CD player.

 

[davideduardo]

LBoy--->Yes, time spent listening to personal music hasn't changed any. I remember those images of folks in the 60's & 70's jogging with their phonographs. It was a terrible sight. Can you find a statistic that backs up common sense at some point??


Daveyboy---->In the 70's, there were lots of portable cassette devices. The first Walkman was a cassette player, not a CD player. Of course, it helped if you had actually been through the era.

Repeat: there were no cassette devices suitable for jogging in the 1970s. The first Walkman was invented in 1979 and not sold in the US until Christmas of that year. It was the Walkman that introduced personal, stereo music selected by the listener, instead of some creep in a radio station.

David, stop changing the subject. The very notion that radio listening habits are unchanged, as you ask us to accept on faith, is absurd.

Pay attention. I said, "n the 70's, there were lots of portable cassette devices. The first Walkman was a cassette player, not a CD player. "

There were lots of portable cassette devices in the 70's... and even late 60's. And there was very little interest in jogging and fitness in that era, so your comment on that is irrelevant. The devices were very, if not ultra portable by the standards of the day.

You think stereo is so important, and it is not. Even today. It took 3 years and change to get to FM stereo staiton #100 after FM stereo was authorized in 1961. And people had plenty of ways of playing their own music in their own order going back to the 40's.

 

[zumahans]

---->There were lots of portable cassette devices in the 70's... and even late 60's.

They were clunky, lo-fi, mono and there was no good way anyone but a radio station employee could make a mix tape. Their market share in the late 60s was below reel-to-reel and waaay below 8-track when that format ruled in the 70s.

The point LBoy is making that a major change occured in 1979, when Sony pioneered the Walkman. People were empowered to listen to something other than radio.

Things changed then, Davey, and continue to change. Asking us to pretend along with you and your sorry dinosaur of an industry, that radio is as important, as vital now as it was then, is just ridiculous.

---->And there was very little interest in jogging and fitness in that era, so your comment on that is irrelevant. The devices were very, if not ultra portable by the standards of the day.

So what, cassettes were not in wide acceptance by consumers in the 1970s. They were novelties. Prerecorded cassette music didn't even exist until into the 80s.

---->You think stereo is so important, and it is not. Even today. It took 3 years and change to get to FM stereo staiton #100 after FM stereo was authorized in 1961. And people had plenty of ways of playing their own music in their own order going back to the 40's.

Yeah, jukeboxes and 45s. You don't listening habits have changed since jukeboxes and 45s? David, you cannot be that big of an idiot. Please do not expect us to swallow that.

 

[zumahans]

---->Nowhere did I say when the Walkman was introduced. Nowhere did I say they were used in the 60's or 70's. Nowhere did I even mention the 60's.

The post that prompted your error was about the 1960s and 70s. You shot back with a retort that contained a major error of fact about either and both decades. You seem to forget the context that your lecture referred to, professor.

----->You took my simple statement about cassette devices being prevalent in the 70's

That's right, David. Cassette tapes were not prevalent in the 70s. 8-track tapes were.

You were not only wrong, you insulted the person you were speaking to while you made a mistake.

Incredible.

 

[semoochie]

I bought prerecorded cassettes at least by the early 70s! By the time I bought my Craig Powerplay in 1975(underdash with push buttons), they were commonplace!

 

[zumahans]

I bought prerecorded cassettes at least by the early 70s! By the time I bought my Craig Powerplay in 1975(underdash with push buttons), they were commonplace!

Preerecorded 8-track music ruled the roost in the 70s.

When I graduated from high school, and worked in a head shop (the money was good), we sold 10 LPs for every 2 8-tracks. I think we had a few cassettes, but they were new and exotic. Audio quality sucked, and the decks ate tapes prodigiously.

Did the purchase of a tape deck change your radio habits? It did mine.

That's the point.