R
radioprofessor
Guest
The answer to the PPM questions posed in earlier threads ( From the Houston board) Expect Fisher stations to suffer for about four Weeks and then return to normal based on their encoding failures. See the diiscussion below:
Interesting question out of Seattle and the Houston board may have the answer, in my humble view. A top group of stations in Seattle suffered a fire and lost ability to encode for a number of days, but were on the air. When the numbers were released for the week all stations dropped and one dropped from number one to number 12 in the prime demos, which is expected if you dont encode for a day or two. Several on the LA board and Seattle board suggested this happened in Houston at one point. Did Arbitron discount the numbers or remove that week from the stations total when it happened here? I live in LA and am a consultant but find this question creates an intriguing parameter. Houston seems to have the most experience in the PPM parameter and I find this board as a better than average intelligent group of posters compared to other markets, in my humble view.
(david eduardo)
Houston's only incident, that I am aware of, is Hurricane Ike in September of 2008. Not only did it disrupt many stations, it disrupted people's ability to charge and use their PPM devices. So the measurement was suspended and no reports issued for September and October.
Arbitron believes that, since there are no multi-month survey periods and no rolling averages of many months, that any problem will be flushed out within at most 4 weeks, and that the weeklies on either side of a problem will show the true level of listening. Otherwise, every technical problem will cause stations to be averaged, invisible, etc. and the process loses credibility.
That's my analysis, not Arbitron's, though. But having been involved directly since the original Philadelphia tests 6 years ago, I have never seen it suggested that any special treatment be given.
Interesting question out of Seattle and the Houston board may have the answer, in my humble view. A top group of stations in Seattle suffered a fire and lost ability to encode for a number of days, but were on the air. When the numbers were released for the week all stations dropped and one dropped from number one to number 12 in the prime demos, which is expected if you dont encode for a day or two. Several on the LA board and Seattle board suggested this happened in Houston at one point. Did Arbitron discount the numbers or remove that week from the stations total when it happened here? I live in LA and am a consultant but find this question creates an intriguing parameter. Houston seems to have the most experience in the PPM parameter and I find this board as a better than average intelligent group of posters compared to other markets, in my humble view.
(david eduardo)
Houston's only incident, that I am aware of, is Hurricane Ike in September of 2008. Not only did it disrupt many stations, it disrupted people's ability to charge and use their PPM devices. So the measurement was suspended and no reports issued for September and October.
Arbitron believes that, since there are no multi-month survey periods and no rolling averages of many months, that any problem will be flushed out within at most 4 weeks, and that the weeklies on either side of a problem will show the true level of listening. Otherwise, every technical problem will cause stations to be averaged, invisible, etc. and the process loses credibility.
That's my analysis, not Arbitron's, though. But having been involved directly since the original Philadelphia tests 6 years ago, I have never seen it suggested that any special treatment be given.
STAR shot back up to number one but you were right that the Fisher cowboys still had that really bad last week cause of their fire or whatever that turned off their encoders