Stupid Market Size Question

[bentheredonethat]

The latest U.S. Census Bureau reports say Austin proper is now the 11th largest city in the country, up from 13th biggest in the last ranking.

That said, how long before the Arbitron market rankings show this increase?

I never studied ratings logic, just radio.

 

[Mediafrog+]

City proper size is irrelevant in measuring overall market size. Advertisers don't care about city limits signs.

 

[AirUpThere]

It might bump Austin up 1 tick. That depends on how much other market grow or shrink. The size of the city, itself, is irrelevant to market size. Radio TSAs are a different animal than TV DMAs. TSAs can be smaller or larger, and they oftentimes encompass fewer towns, making more TSAs than DMAs. TV has 212 DMAs, where radio has closer to 280 TSAs. (DMA=Designated Market Area, as measured by Nielsen); (TSA=Total Survey Area, as measured by Arbitron) Also, in TV, Austin is a strange bird in that it sometimes gets Gillespie County and sometimes loses Gillespie County. Fredericksburg people sometimes lean San Antonio and sometimes they go Austin. Many things make Austin weird in media because of the terrain west of 35, because the channels are all originally UHF (minus 7), and notably, HUT numbers here are in the trash. (Households Using Television). The city's inhabitants are young, they're not at home, they're tech-savvy and they're constantly on the move. Some markets markedly smaller than Austin can boast much higher audience numbers because their population is more sedentary and their butts are parked in front of a TV, where Austin's people never sit still.

 

[davideduardo]

It might bump Austin up 1 tick. That depends on how much other market grow or shrink. The size of the city, itself, is irrelevant to market size. Radio TSAs are a different animal than TV DMAs. TSAs can be smaller or larger, and they oftentimes encompass fewer towns, making more TSAs than DMAs. TV has 212 DMAs, where radio has closer to 280 TSAs. (DMA=Designated Market Area, as measured by Nielsen); (TSA=Total Survey Area, as measured by Arbitron)

Radio uses, almost exclusively, MSA's or Metropolitan Survey Areas. They are not always the same as the Census / OMB "MSA" definitions (which stand for Metropolitan Statistical Areas).

Since MSA's are determined to some extent by the listening to stations "home" to the market and by commute patterns, MSAs are often much smaller than TV DMAs, which include the coverage of TV via cable... thus pieces of Montana are in the Salt Lake City DMA.

PPM markets don't, as a rule, have TSAs. They mostly just have an MSA, although, for example, Houston has a radio DMA.

 

[davideduardo]

The latest U.S. Census Bureau reports say Austin proper is now the 11th largest city in the country, up from 13th biggest in the last ranking.

That said, how long before the Arbitron market rankings show this increase?

I never studied ratings logic, just radio.

The Austin market is composed of all of Bastrop, Caldwell, Hays, Travis and Williamson counties. The population of individual cities is not looked at by Arbitron... just the counties.

Arbitron makes annual adjustments... October for PPM markets and Fall for diary markets... based on data from Claritas. Claritas uses Census data and the annual ACS survey data, along with other indicators, to produce population figures as well as breaks on age, gender, ethnicity, income, etc.

If the growth of the Austin metro survey area exceeds the growth of other markets, it could move up in rank.