SOME PPM SURPRISES IN LOS ANGELES

[austingeezer]

Some formats with the most fiercely loyal listeners — urban, country and Spanish-language — suffered in the switch from diaries to PPMs. Arbitron attributed the change to fans having over-reported their time spent listening to those stations in the diaries. (K-VET listeners, under the diary menthod, were famous for their loyalty. Over the years, I talked to numerous K-VET listeners who filled in their entire diary for K-VET, regardless of who else they may have listened to.)

PPM also has shown that most radio listening isn't in weekday mornings (6-10 a.m.), as had been thought, but midday (10 a.m.-3 p.m.): There was more at-work listening than previously reported.

 

[fredcantu]

Webster defines listening as paying attention to sound while hearing is simply receiving aural stimulus. The PPM measures hearing not listening.

I'll agree with the PPMs that more people hear radio in middays but they probably LISTEN more in the morning.

 

[davideduardo]

I'll agree with the PPMs that more people hear radio in middays but they probably LISTEN more in the morning.

One of the things that the PPM has revealed about mornings is that listeners have many more interruptions than we ever imagined (or really wanted to think about). In the diary, a "6 AM to 9 AM" entry that was very common turns out to be a bunch of "kibbles and bits" of listening. 6 AM after we hit snooze twice is really 6:20. Then there is the time in the shower. The time taking the trash out. The time running to the laundry room for clean undies, and the time spent taking the kids to the school bus stop. Or the time between the kitchen and the car. Then there is the time we actually listened to another station for traffic in the car, before going back to that favorite morning show. Oh, and then there are the times at home and in the car when we turned the radio down to talk on the phone or cell. Finally, there's the missing 10 minutes at 8:50 when we got to the parking lot at work and turned off the car and walked in enough time in advance so as not to be late.

The 3 hours in the morning was really 47 minutes.

The thing I could kick myself for is not really thinking this obvious fact through before the PPM exploded the myth. I could have done more concise morning shows, staged traffic and service elements better, done better music rotations... and it's no consolation that nobody else thought of it, either.

In radio, moments that conclusively prove that we are not as smart as we think ourselves to be are not well received.

 

[fredcantu]

One of the things that the PPM has revealed about mornings is that listeners have many more interruptions than we ever imagined (or really wanted to think about).

TV figured this out long ago. I remember seeing research videos that showed families "watching" local morning news. It showed all of the interruptions and distractions that happened while the family was supposedly watching the news.

 

[daypart]

My San Antonio household was a diary household a few years ago and I definitely over-reported my listening. Not ridiculous amounts, but 20 minutes became 60 and the weekday morning that I didn't listen to any radio included my usual helping of my favorite station. The 5 minutes I spent listening to the talker I usually despise while waiting for the news never made it into my diary.

The findings in the OP don't surprise me one bit.

 

[MisterRadio]

David, I would have to agree that the three hours in the morning is probably more like 47 minutes, but does that really matter? I guarantee that if you asked any of those people to name the personalities on a radio station, they will name the morning show first and their perception would be that they listened to the whole show even if parts of it were missed because of the reasons you mentioned. I do agree with Fred that at work listening is usually more passive because its usually background noise. I used to have a TV on in my office even though I paid little attention to it (and I worked at a radio station!). Basically, I still think that even though the time is technically less, the amount actually absorbed is more in the mornings.