Will Buffalo Opt Out of PPM?

[JustPastBuffalo]

Taylor On Radio in yesterday's news letter reported:

Arbitron market #51, Monmouth-Ocean, stays with the diary and goes year-round. It wasn’t on the schedule to go PPM anyhow, but one of its two counties, Monmouth, has been getting PPM measurement as part of the New York metro. That made Monmouth-Ocean a blended market of electronic measurement and diary, and some broadcasters weren’t comfortable with the situation. (Or the number of PPM panel members in Monmouth, which has a 12+ population of over 500,000.)

Arbitron tells TRI it was approached by the broadcasters and the ultimate decision was to upgrade its diary-measured frequency from two books a year (Spring/Fall) to continuous measurement. Also to enlarge the number of diaries by about 730, to 2,200, starting this Fall. The market will see its first-ever Winter book in 2011, ending an anomalous situation that had it as a large market that wasn’t "continuous measurement" in the diary world.
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New Orleans, Arbitron Market #52, also chose to opt out of PPM. Given the economic climate in Buffalo and the recent financial challenges facing two of the market's three major clusters, would it surprise anybody if broadcasters here decided to remain with the diary method?

 

[chas108]

Call me the contrarian Jim, but I actually like PPM.

Granted, I'm at a long-established format leader. Research shows we've established our position well. But it's liberating to let the recorded imaging reinforce the positioning and concentrate on content when on-mic. I've found you can actually do something entertaining over an :08 intro when you don't have to spend half that time reinforcing the station position.

Sure it can be argued you can do that stuff with the diary...but knowing the PPM picks up your station means you no longer have to program to the diary.

What's scary in fact is that research has showed listeners often tune out content promoting the station...we have to find new imaginative ways to make station positioning/maintenance/promotion relatable to the listeners. So we're letting this new era drive us to make it all about the listener.

I know some PD's are using PPM to further restrict their talent...but based on my experience and what we've learned about PPM...that's the wrong course. Instead, use it to make every talkset count. No more throwaway breaks.

That's my take on it FWIW...

 

[heydaybegone]

I shall continue to sit quietly on the sidelines (in the pits for you race fans)...as this one continues!!
The picture is being painted across 3 different threads now. (or is it 4? ;D)
The trees are growing in the forest...

that's all

 

[SirRoxalot]

I, for one, would welcome PPM - as flawed as it may be. The diary system is so obviously skewed by outside promotion that even the inferior sampling offered by PPM's miniscule sample probably reflects actual listening better than the diary.

It would require spreadsheet wizards to avoid the temptation to slice, dice, and extrapolate even more. The ability of PPM to detect (create?) spurious "trends" seems pretty obvious by this point. If you get lost in the data, and start reacting to every "trend", there's a danger that you may destabilize your programming altogether.

 

[chas108]

I, for one, would welcome PPM - as flawed as it may be. The diary system is so obviously skewed by outside promotion that even the inferior sampling offered by PPM's miniscule sample probably reflects actual listening better than the diary.

It would require spreadsheet wizards to avoid the temptation to slice, dice, and extrapolate even more. The ability of PPM to detect (create?) spurious "trends" seems pretty obvious by this point. If you get lost in the data, and start reacting to every "trend", there's a danger that you may destabilize your programming altogether.

Exactly.

And really...all PPM is doing is tracking radio exposure in a more realistic way. Imagine someone writes in their diary listening to Rush Limbaugh for three hours...when in reality they got up a couple times to go to the bathroom, or maybe took a 2-minute phone call, etc. etc.

The guys in the Arb meetings really stressed this point: You can't look at every time the meter drops and assume you've done anything wrong. Maybe someone listening to you had to go back to work...take a phone call...stop at the drive-thru, etc. They know there's an issue with sample size. But there's also been enough learned about PPM that a good programmer ought to be able to find their way. In my opinion...those who have the gut for knowing what their listeners want in the first place will do better with PPM than someone reacting to every time they see a drop in the meter.

Just like the old diary system...one bad month doesn't make a bad trend.

 

[Bob1370]

Interesting question--we're getting close, perhaps, to a day of decision in both Buffalo and Rochester, which are roughly comparable markets as of now. It's anyone's guess what the owners in Rochester (three main commercial clusters, one noncomm cluster, and a lot of independent or small ownership operations) will do. If I had to guess I'd figure they'd opt for continuing the diary with a somewhat enhanced sample size, like in Monmouth County NJ--saves the time and hassle of installing the decoders to register the signal on PPM (which takes a lot of technicians' time and therefore stations' money to install and set right even if the devices themselves are "free").

Besides, there's always the fear of the unknown, combined with knowledge of the impact on stations in various formats wherever PPM is now being used. Rock, urban and ethnic stations will resist in both markets because there's a history of those formats being hurt by PPM in places like New York. The CHRs, sports talkers and classic hits stations may want to adopt PPM because those formats have been helped in other markets. News and talk stations (which seem to register nearly identical AQH and cume by either methodology in almost every market which has gone from diary to PPM) will be noncommittal. Can't see a consensus building; can see divisions of opinion even within the front office of individual clusters. That's what'll delay or prevent implementation beyond the top 40 or 50 markets.

 

[Element9]

Do radio stations in the Buffalo-Niagara Falls market really need PPM to sell their product? Will advertisers perceive and advantage over results derived by the diary method? Just recently, supersetweekend, who appears to be one of the market's better sales people and closers, offered that he and his company are less dependent upon ratings because they've developed relationships with their clients. PPM and diary each has its issues. Diary keepers are notoriously inexact. PPM is subject to incidental logging. Pick your poison.

 

[audio4tv]

While Arbitron would like to get PPM everywhere, if it could afford it, Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse are not on the drawing board anytime soon. New Orleans was going to get PPM, when it was a much bigger market, pre Katrina. Due to the demographics and the status of the city, Arbitron was committed to keeping it in the initial top 50 market rollout for PPM.