Radio is Dead (and not just AM)

[semoochie]

A familiar refrain but pretty inaccurate. It wasn't typical of my parents, nor most other parents of my friends. They may have preferred Sinatra or Como but they listened to Top-40. How do I know? Look at the ratings for KTKT in the late 50's and early 60's - that one station had over 50% of the total Tucson market and they had it for years. So a substantial number of adults must have been listening in addition to the teens of the day. The two largest industries in Tucson at that time were the University of Arizona and Davis-Monthan AFB - both guilty of importing thousands of people from all over the country so it was very much a melting pot of preferences. At the end of the decade the population exceeded 200,000 (up from 50,000 in 1950).

In the 60's I do remember some parents grumbling about the Beatles hair styles.....until the Rolling Stones made an appearance and then the Beatles looked positively formal.

I'm sure that David has a few words to say about the Hooper ratings.

 

[landtuna]

I'm sure that David has a few words to say about the Hooper ratings.

I'm sure he will but OTOH I fully expect someone to come out saying that Tucson wasn't typical of the USA at large and that might be true. But it was a huge melting pot of all kinds of people in those days (and actually continues to be today although their radio market seems really crippled).

 

[davideduardo]

I'm sure that David has a few words to say about the Hooper ratings.

Hooper actually had a very good system which was in-home coincidental by telephone. The only questions were what the person answered the phone was listening to at the moment and in the last 15 minutes and what anyone else was listening too if anyone else was home.

No diary, no recall, no meter. Just "what are you listening to?" for one thin time slice.

The methodology is on one of the first pages at http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Ratings/Hooper-Roanoke.pdf

This system became too expensive to sustain. In small markets, there were over 1000 calls per hour, a huge sample. It also did not measure the growing car audience and the at work audience, so when Pulse came along, measuring all locations via 24 hour recall, the game changed.

But Hooper was very accurate given the huge samples. It just did not endure due to changing advertiser needs and the creation of what was perceived to be a better measurement system.

 

[landtuna]

Hooper actually had a very good system which was in-home coincidental by telephone. The only questions were what the person answered the phone was listening to at the moment and in the last 15 minutes and what anyone else was listening too if anyone else was home.

I actually remember my father answering one or two of these calls. As it happened he had just called either KTKT or KAIR with a song request for one of my sisters and it hadn't been played yet. He gave that poor operator a slice of Army language along with his listening history.

 

[semoochie]

Hooper actually had a very good system which was in-home coincidental by telephone. The only questions were what the person answered the phone was listening to at the moment and in the last 15 minutes and what anyone else was listening too if anyone else was home.

No diary, no recall, no meter. Just "what are you listening to?" for one thin time slice.

The methodology is on one of the first pages at http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Ratings/Hooper-Roanoke.pdf

This system became too expensive to sustain. In small markets, there were over 1000 calls per hour, a huge sample. It also did not measure the growing car audience and the at work audience, so when Pulse came along, measuring all locations via 24 hour recall, the game changed.

But Hooper was very accurate given the huge samples. It just did not endure due to changing advertiser needs and the creation of what was perceived to be a better measurement system.

If those were the only questions, would it mean that there were no breakdowns at all ie. it could be morning drive or 3AM, seven years old or 97 years old? These are extremes, just to make the point.

 

[davideduardo]

If those were the only questions, would it mean that there were no breakdowns at all ie. it could be morning drive or 3AM, seven years old or 97 years old? These are extremes, just to make the point.

They registered the exact quarter hour. So the tables showed day parts, but very broad ones. They also showed ratings by each station's shows. See the link I posted to see a real Hooperating.

 

[vchimpanzee]

Yes - I realize that the commercial load on music radio today is probably no worse, or perhaps even better than in the heydey of Top 40, when it was song-2 commercials-song-2 commercials, etc. And the advantage today is that you get to hear 4 or more songs in a row without interruption. The problem is - a five to seven minute stop set is pretty mind-numbing. I generally change the station.

If I were an advertiser, I wouldn't be thrilled to have my commercial 3 minutes into a 6 minute stop set. I would want my commercial right after the previous song. Perhaps advertisers can pay more for placement these days(?)

On America's Best Music, which is standards (by the current definition), each hour works this way. If the station airs news at the top of the hour, then after the news whcih has its own commercials, there are several more commercials and then a song, then the DJ talks, then two more songs, then the DJ talks, then a break with six 30-second commercials or any combination adding up to that amount of time (though recently I heard even more, maybe because of the election), then two or three more songs after which the DJ talks, then commercials or a 3-minute song, then two more songs, then a break with six 30-second commercials, then two more songs after which the DJ talks, then commercials or a 3-minute song, then two more songs which may or may not have the DJ talking between them. When the automation was broken, I heard two songs instead of news.