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Throw Out Arbitron

T

TakeItFromMe

From R@R:

"Galaxy Broadcasting gets rid of Arbitron and goes to Eastlan." Check out the story at radioandrecords.com.
I worked in that market and get this: the owner of the station got rid of Arbitron and went with a service that is now in 100 markets competing against Arbitron. The move kept the station live and local and saved seven air-staff positions. Sales people also got bonuses. Made me think after all the talk about ratings: is it really worth it? What if we sold the stations without ratings or with some other service. What a concept, sell radio based on results not ratings that no one trusts anyway. After all the posts about the ratings, I thought this might be an interesting topic. Take the millions spent on numbers and put it into better programming, live airstaff and we all win. The gang at Galaxy is loving the Christmas bonus. I am sure the owner put some of the dollars saved going to this Eastlan to the corporate bottom line, but it was nice some staff got raises and kept their jobs.

What do you think? Go without ratings or are we hooked like Cocaine?
 
Wild story in R@R. Have never heard of Eastlan, is it the old Accu-ratings?
I like the idea, and am surprised no one has been able to really challenge arbitron since Birch years ago. They kind of have a monopoly and no one really trusts the numbers. The People Meter will cost a fortune and jobs will be lost.
 
Eastlan has been around for a few years. It focusses mainly on smaller markets, including many in the northwest.
 
Good topic. The top 40 markets will be People Meter in the next few years and I find it highly unlikely companies will just throw out arbitron. Remember that agencies buy it too. Do you really want a 25 year old media buyer in LA deciding what station in Seattle to buy based on their "feel" for the market? The Diary system is old and flawed, but it is all we have to justify cost per point and demo breakdowns to clients. People Meter will be a bit better, but will cost a bundle.

Markets underthe top 40 are likely candidates for Eastlan or no ratings at all. Many are going that direction. I suspect Spokane, Eugene and Bend can get along fine without arbitron, Seattle cannot. Saving a hundred thousand a year in ratings cost in Eugene would definitely save jobs, in Seattle it just won't happen.
 
Imagine this sales guy Dan wants to keep things the same. Isn't this the same guy that thinks Ichabod, Kent and Alan and Bob Rivers will always stay on top thanks to four-book averages? Come on Dan, wake up! Times are changing. Do you think is might be the flawed arbitron diary system that allows these old shows to keep hanging on? Arbitron relies on people's memories and what is most familiar gets written down. Maybe that is why stations like THE POINT, BEAT, JACK all had trouble after their launch. The stations may have been fine, it is the 40 year old diary ratings that killed em.

Let's try something new like this Oregon service or go without ratings. My belief is radio would improve, buyers would have to do more than just look at computer rating print-outs and thanks to the savings people might get paid more like in Syracuse.
 
mammaknowsbest said:
Arbitron relies on people's memories and what is most familiar gets written down. Maybe that is why stations like THE POINT, BEAT, JACK all had trouble after their launch. The stations may have been fine, it is the 40 year old diary ratings that killed em.
Click to expand...

I don't blame Arbitron system for those stations performance ... the "oh wow" formats (which launch with songs people haven't heard in awhile ..but are familiar) tend to do well up front and then drop off after everyone remembers WHY those songs eventually got "some rest". As YOU have pointed out, possible MOVIN may have more legs because it has some re/currents in there to keep the mix from going stale after 12-18 months.

Meanwhile..all the griping about diary vs people meter is kind of laughable. PD's coming unglued because their results under new system don't match their results under the old. So ... we're comparing a system where people think a few days later what they were listening to vs. something that actually captures their habits in far less than 15-minute recall segments. Seems VERY probable that the results won't match ... but all the marketing, bonuses, buys, etc. are based on the old system so I can see WHY people freak out.

Eastlan is VERY local (partially owned by Kent Phillips) and is definitely interested in providing a service without gouging the stations ... while being as accurate as possible. They are also looking at alternative technologies to fielding (phone calls).

Ultimately, though ... the part I think is most flawed about the whole enchilada is that people "reverse program" to the metodologies of Arbitron. Seems pretty basic that if you provide an outstanding product and lots of people enjoy it, the Arbitron measurement (whether diary or electronic) picks up that success and off ya go. But we're at the point of dissecting maximizer to figure out where diaries are ... working up this band-aid or that band-aid to get those specific people to 'write it down' some more and that whole loop has very little to do with the core product.

And in defense of Dan ... he is arguing that the people are on top because the system we have shows that they are. His comments are usually based on the stations performance not on his tastes; and I don't see that in most of the other comments here that simply say a station should be on top because it's a poster's personal favorite.
 
There is a solid theme to the posts. Arbitron is flawed. I don't know whether it underrates new stations, but that has always been my theory. I don't know if this Eastlan is any better or if we could survive without ratings, but I am just suggesting it might be worth a try. No wonder KPLZ had a bad trend if Phillips is off running a new ratings company. Are you sure its the same guy? This company is based in Oregon and the R@R story is out of Syracuse.
Either way, I still think we rely too much on ratings. Keep in mind that the top station and the 20th station in the market are only a couple of percentage points apart. AND our lives depend on the results. Take the ratings money, put it back into the product and we all win.
 
Arbitron

Like Arb's "Portable People Meter", it’s all about usage - NOT about recall.

You have to trust that Arbitron still knows what they’re doing and is still the 'bible' of the biz -
- being truly representative of 5-1/2 million people.

There could be some older cume that doesn’t listen to the radio all that much. If a panel approaches and got one of those old ratings books, some of the older demos may write radio stations down, even though they’re not giving out all of the usage they reported.

Stations could get dinged on the upper end, but might be compensated by better performance on the younger end, which has always been a struggle for Arbitron to capture.
 
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