Your true feelings on the diary or PPM's

[wgliradio]

Since you have obviously been working closely with Arbitron, on industry committees, and participating in advisory groups for four decades, I'll take your word for it.

I simply thought that they had changed paper and pencil for a digital recorder.

If only it were that simple. And yes, I have been working closely with Arbitron on this over the last 18 months since we started talking seriously as New York approached, including seven encoder installs and testing over the last 6 months.

 

[davideduardo]

Since you have obviously been working closely with Arbitron, on industry committees, and participating in advisory groups for four decades, I'll take your word for it.

I simply thought that they had changed paper and pencil for a digital recorder.

If only it were that simple. And yes, I have been working closely with Arbitron on this over the last 18 months since we started talking seriously as New York approached, including seven encoder installs and testing over the last 6 months.

And for how long have you been receiving the PPM data and using the Arbitron software, attending the fly-ins in Columbia and elsewehere and being on joing ad agency / radio comittees. One thing is installing an encoder (give them lots of ventilation and set up pager notification for failure) and another is looking at the methodology and reports. I've been doing that for over 5 years now.

 

[cadillacjack]

I sense the two of you are about to tussle again...remember that one of you is a very talented engineer, the other a equally talented consultant and programmer. The information you need from Arbitron to do your job, David, is different from Mr. WGLI.

CJ

 

[wgliradio]

And for how long have you been receiving the PPM data and using the Arbitron software, attending the fly-ins in Columbia and elsewehere and being on joing ad agency / radio comittees. One thing is installing an encoder (give them lots of ventilation and set up pager notification for failure) and another is looking at the methodology and reports. I've been doing that for over 5 years now.

It would be nice if my day to day responsibilities allowed me to get away and fly all over the country, alas it does not as I have radio stations to keep on the air right here at home, which includes the day to day grind of things that are not as "sexy". That comes first.

 

[davideduardo]

I sense the two of you are about to tussle again...remember that one of you is a very talented engineer, the other a equally talented consultant and programmer. The information you need from Arbitron to do your job, David, is different from Mr. WGLI.

The problem here is that the issues with PPM are entirely sample and sales related, and have nothing to do with the technical aspect which has been working flawlessly for a decade or more. This is not an area where engineering expertise comes into play... it's where statistics is the issue.

In either the diary method or the PPM, respondents are selected from the population and in proportion to needed subsets of the population. In both cases, data on radio usage is collected and tabulated and projected into the universe and subsets. The issues arrise if the sample is not perfect (it is not in PPM by Arbitron's own admission) or if advertisers, for whom radio "buys" the ratings, are not using the data as we hoped they would (which is also happening).

By comparison, the encoding and technical part of the PPM is realtively simple...the issues are so mundane as getting longer battery life out of dock, etc. One interesting tidbit announced last week is that a solution to the "away from home" issue is at hand; at present, the PPM can tell if it is at home or away, but not if it is "in car" or "at work" which are critical data sets. Arbitron now has a way to determine if a meter is in te car or not, and will implement in a new generation of PPM devices. That's an example of how the system, which works perfectly on the technical side, can be improved.

 

[wgliradio]

I sense the two of you are about to tussle again...remember that one of you is a very talented engineer, the other a equally talented consultant and programmer. The information you need from Arbitron to do your job, David, is different from Mr. WGLI.

CJ

My argument with Mr. Eduardo is simple. The change to PPM is the most radical change in Arbitron history. What we have now is direct measurement of what was actually heard instead of what the person decides to write down or what the person interprets they heard. Even casual listening in a store, which would never have been noted in an old fashioned diary, will be logged. You could walk into a deli in New York City playing WSKQ and a white 48 year old female, who may not even understand a word of it, could have her device register the station.

This is quite different than "paper to digital".

 

[davideduardo]

My argument with Mr. Eduardo is simple. The change to PPM is the most radical change in Arbitron history. What we have now is direct measurement of what was actually heard instead of what the person decides to write down or what the person interprets they heard. Even casual listening in a store, which would never have been noted in an old fashioned diary, will be logged. You could walk into a deli in New York City playing WSKQ and a white 48 year old female, who may not even understand a word of it, could have her device register the station.

This is quite different than "paper to digital".

The difference is really as simple as manual recording of listening to electronic detection of listening.

P1 and P2 listeners still contribute over 80% of total listening... half the cume acconts for over 92% of total listening.

Share (or rating) is not determined by either the diary or the PPM. Both measure cume (station listened to) and TSL (amount of time listened). The PPM may pick up occasional listening (but it has to be 5 minutes in a quarter hour still to count) but the listening is so tiny that it does not contribute to the share of a station.

The PPM is more prcise in exact times, as it does not round the way human nature does... but in the P1 and P2 listening, there is considerable compatibility between the systems.

This is more like the change from solid rubber tires to ones with inner tubes... the ride is more comfortable, but you still have tires on all 4 wheels. The PPM just ups the accuracy of measurement, but we still have a sample of the population being used to project into the whole population. The PPM to the diary is like a PDA to a notepad. The end results are the same, but the degree of accuracy is better.

Keep in mind that of the two purposes of the PPM when agencies started demanding improved ratings, only one has been implemented. Agencies wanted faster data delivery, and they wanted all electronic media (tv, cable, radio, satellite, web streams) measured by one system. Today, we have achieved faster data delivery. I get weeklies 10 days after each week ends, and monthlies 10 days after each 28 day month is over, and the data, daily or weekly, has as high reliabilty as a quarterly book.

Agencies did not ask for measurement of light listening, as no degree of ad campaign can efficiently reach light listeners... you'd need 200 spots a week to get maybe 85% of them. Agencies wanted fast delivery, and that required electronic data collection, not a diary that got mailed and hand tabulated.