Voltair & The PPM Ratings

[RoddyFreeman]

Has anyone been following the controversy regarding Voltair and the Nielsen PPM ratings?

According to Voltair, Nielsen's meter is much more likely to pick up music, especially loud music, than talk. Supposedly, news/talk stations are at a disadvantage in the ratings. Moreover, jock talk on music stations reportedly lowers ratings. (Of course, it's been known for a long time that continuous music sweeps lead to higher ratings.)

Voltair manufactures a box that stations can install in their audio chain that supposedly remedies the problem and results in higher ratings. And many stations, especially in the largest markets, are using Voltair. Nielsen is advising stations not to use it until Nielsen's research on the equipment is complete, but they are not forbidding stations to use it. However, Numeris, the ratings company in Canada, which I think is owned by Nielsen, has informed stations they are not allowed to use Voltair until its effects on ratings are studied.

I'm guessing Voltair works although I wonder why NPR stations, about the quietest stations there are, are #1 in a few major markets. Of course, WSB is a ratings leader here in Atlanta, but its talk and processing are a bit on the loud side.

I have fairly credible confirmation that at least the iHeart stations and CBS stations are using Voltair in Atlanta. Not sure who else is.

 

[secondchoice]

I have seen a few posts that if you have "good" hearing Voltair makes a station sound bad. I wonder if 95.5 is using it. IMHO they sound like the treble is turned way up. But then if CBS is using Voltair on 92.9 then that is not the case.* This might be the end of PPM as the only measure of ratings. From a local sales point, recall is critical.


* Maybe it's just my hearing but if you equalize all of the tuner settings for a "flat" sound then tune 95.5 it sounds "raspy" compared to 92.9 and 106.7.

 

[davideduardo]

H
Voltair manufactures a box that stations can install in their audio chain that supposedly remedies the problem and results in higher ratings. And many stations, especially in the largest markets, are using Voltair. Nielsen is advising stations not to use it until Nielsen's research on the equipment is complete, but they are not forbidding stations to use it. However, Numeris, the ratings company in Canada, which I think is owned by Nielsen, has informed stations they are not allowed to use Voltair until its effects on ratings are studied..

Numeris is owned by the broadcasters in Canada and licenses technology from Nielsen for the use of the PPM.

The PPM encoder at stations inserts the "watermark" in one of several audio frequency bands when there is adequate density and duration of the station audio in any of the bands. If there is dense material, up to 180 watermarks can be inserted every quarter hour.

In less dense material, some opportunities will be missed. But it only takes, in the most extreme situation, three detections in a quarter hour to get credit for a quarter hour.

What the Voltaire does is, essentially, amplify the audio in the encoding range so that more tags can be inserted. However, there is so far not a lot of evidence that doing this increases quarter hour credits. it may increase the number of watermark tags, but does it increase the number of quarter hour credits for a station?

 

[RoddyFreeman]

By the way, I've spoken to a couple chief engineers here in Atlanta. They will not tell me one way or the other whether they use Voltair.