No Cume Issues Here

Arbitron just released the latest RADAR national reach numbers and they look good.

From their release:

Radio reaches 92 percent of persons 12+ each week, despite the adoption of MP3 players and the growth of Internet-only stations. Even 89 percent of the youngest radio audience, teens ages 12-17, most accustomed to using new technologies and forms of media, continue to tune in each week. Network radio also reaches nearly 85 percent of the ad elusive and media multi-taskers Adults 18-34. You can read the entire release here.

While these numbers look healthy and should be interpreted as a bright spot for the industry, we must wait for the entire report to become available before we get too excited. As we know cume (reach) is only half the story--the other half being the TSL. We know younger listeners use the radio, but as I outlined last year, our engagement numbers (TSL) have been in steep decline especially with those 34 and younger. I would argue that the TSL may in fact be a more important measure of the industry's general health.

For now, we must wait and see.

Arbitron vs. New York State

Thrown out!

According to the judge the states case raises "important state interests." In short, the AG's case alleges Arbitron is guilty of fraudulent and deceptive business practices and civil rights violations. [All Access posted the full text of the judges opinion here.]

In a release Arbitron SVP/Press & Investor Relations THOM MOCARSKY said, "Today's ruling does not impact ARBITRON's right to publish our PPM audience estimates in New York. We went to Federal Court seeking to protect our right to provide the radio industry with the up-to-date PPM audience estimates it needs. Following our efforts, the New York Attorney General chose not to seek a temporary restraining order adversely impacting our right to produce PPM estimates.

"Now that ARBITRON has commercialized the PPM service in NEW YORK and other key markets, we look forward to defending our interests. Broadcasters, agencies, and advertisers need continual PPM audience estimates if radio is to remain competitive in an increasingly complex and crowded media marketplace."

Fraud, deception, and civil rights violations? Let me be understated here. Really? What? Over the years Arbitron has gone out of its way to fairly (some might say more than fairly) appropriately represent minority listeners. What changed? Why now?

I'm the last person to give Arbitron a free pass. I'm not saying PPM is perfect. It seems to me that stating that the state has an important interest in radio ratings is troubling. Why?

It's fair game to challenge Arbitron on panel size, ethnic balance, and other key components relating to PPM. Aside from the lawyers there are no other guaranteed winners in this case and only serves to tarnish the already hurting radio industry even further.

First Lawsuits, Now A Press Conference--The PPM Fight Continues

Ad Age has posted this video report of a press conference at NY City Hall by political representatives and trade organizations of minority broadcasters. US House of Representatives member Representative Nydia Velazquez (D) of New York stated, "we must ensure the voices of minorities are not silenced and this is exactly what Arbitron will do."

Pretty strong words. Watch for yourself, but it seems to me the claim that Arbitron is purposefully trying to put minority broadcasters out of business is quite a stretch.

A Tale of Two [Arbitron] Diaires

In the not to distant past I was involved with a station that was in a multi-front battle for male audience. In this particular small market there were at least 5 stations vying for the males shares--a tough road no matter how you sliced it.

That brings us to those two pesky male diaries, both from the same household and with enough AQH's to take a station from essentially last to first with a big lead. And since there were so few males diaries to begin with those 2 diaries carried so much weight they were the difference between success and failure! Easily provable with a simple diary review. Good thing Arbitron calls these diary ratings "estimates." Sure, we voiced our concerns, but after numerous rounds of discussion that ratings disaster stood. Magically, the next book was not quite as out of wack.

If I had known all I had to do was call the states Attorney General to complain I would have done it. After all, this stations financial health depended reliable ratings information to sell advertising and to uphold its standing in the market in the face of stiff competition. Wrong. No such help available. This was between a vendor [Arbitron] and its customer [the radio station].

So how did the current PPM battle become not only a state legal issue but a POLITICAL football as well? Of course, the two go hand in hand.

Despite having had my fair share of "discussions" with Arbitron over the years I do not believe they are purposefully trying to screw their clients. I don't fault the complainants either for trying to get the fairest ratings possible, in fact, I applaud and support their desire to get what they are paying for. My objection is making this a news event when it should be handled behind the scenes.

Like any good political fight it is escalating out of control with Arbitron releasing PPM data two days early and the NY AG warning Arbitron, radio stations and ad agencies of the risks they are taking by releasing, using, selling, quoting these potentially "tainted" numbers. (not sure if I should laugh or cry)

While radio is going through a very challenging time (along with everybody else right now) the last thing the industry needs is to be screaming from the rooftops--hey look at us we got even more problems, our fancy new 15 plus years in the making ratings systems stinks!

News and Talk on FM: Pt. 3

And now in what appears to be the final chapter of Ratings Providence Style...

As reported on competitor WHJJ's website:

WPRO Comes Clean in Ratings Scandal

In a shocking turn of events, WPRO blames their morning host's wife for trying to "fix" the ratings.

The TV stations in town were all over this as well.

And long time Providence morning guys Paul and Al over at WHJY doing what they do best...listen in right here:




And that appears to be that. Scandal revealed, mystery solved, and everyone lived to tell about it. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

News and Talk on FM: An Update

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about how news/talk stations would continue their successful migration to FM and highlighted WPRO's (Providence) spring ratings success as a shining example. Then the news came out regarding 6 questionable diaries that Arbitron was looking into.

Despite the fact that the premise of the post remains strong and intact, I was concerned that I still might have an erroneous post on my hands. I decided I would wait until Arbitron reissued the Providence ratings before I would change or amend my original post. If you missed it you can read the original here.

According to Radio and Records, Arbitron has re-issued the spring book and here are the detail of the adjustments:

Spring Revised: Arbitron released revised spring numbers for Providence after discovering six diaries from "media-affiliated households." Citadel talk WPRO-AM goes from third to tied for second 12+, not to first as originally shown. The revised numbers heavily affected WPRO's morning show in adults 25-54 but didn't stop the show from going 6.4-7.4 ranking No. 1 12+, says PD Paul Giammarco. The show fell from fourth to ninth place among adults 25-54. Adults 35-64 showed no change in the reissue.

While embarrassing for the station; still a decent book overall as well as for the morning show.

What's still unknown--or not reported thus far-- what was the origin of those 6 renegade diaries. [Arbitron is so hungry for willing participants, this type of "error" does not surprise me. Not to mention stations equally hungry for higher ratings. I may have to write about that at another time.]

As anyone who deals with Arbitron ratings knows, the impact that 6 diaries can have on a ratings period is mind-numbing--even though Providence is a decent sized market with a metro population of 1,376,500 (ranked #39th) and presumably an adequate number of diaries to appropriately measure the market. Imagine the impact in a smaller market!

Based on today's re-issue I will let the original post stand. Like it or not, spoken word formats are FM's future. Got something interesting to say?

Cellphone Only Households And Radio

There's a new survey of wireless/landline usage in the US by the National Center for Health Statistics and across all demographic groups the percentage of households that are cellphone only continues to increase. Overall 16% of households in the US are cellphone only. Even among 65+ households cellphone only has grown from .9% in 2004 to 2.2% at the end of 2007. The younger the respondent the greater the percentage of being cellphone only--18-24's are 34.5% cellphone only and 25-29's are 30.6% cellphone only. In the context of radio this trend continues to spell b-i-g trouble for ratings and Arbitron. At last December's Arbitron Radio Advisory Council Meeting the issue of cellphone only sampling was addressed: [note the updated stats in this post]

Mr. Cohen stated that the most recent cell-phone-only statistics from the government indicate that the cell-only percentage for the second half of 2006 was 11.8% overall and 25% among persons 18–24. He said that while the coverage of the landline telephone frame is deteriorating, the costs to recruit cell-only households using traditional telephone frame random-digit dialing (RDD) techniques is several orders of magnitude higher than the cost of recruiting landline households. Some reasons for the higher cost include the higher no-answer rate, lower cooperation rates and the fact that current laws and regulations prohibit the use of auto-dialers, i.e., cell-only household recruitment calls must be hand-dialed.

Arbitron is researching alternative means to bring cell-only households into the sample. The company currently is conducting a field test using an address frame to recruit households. Pending success of the tests, implementation could occur in some markets in 2009.

The Council expressed concern about Arbitron’s current practice of capping cell-phone-only households in its PPM New York service (and other radio first markets beyond Philadelphia) at 5%. Arbitron indicated that it was prepared to use the address-frame sampling method being tested in the Diary service to increase the cell-phone-only portion of the PPM sample if testing proves successful.

With all of the spirited debate recently regarding the ongoing PPM roll-out, largely over sampling, Arbitron is going to have to figure this out and quick. I don't know about you but I find the sentence, "Arbitron is researching alternative ways to bring cell-only households into the sample," frightening. Sounds like a process that is going to move at a snails-pace. Unfortunately, I have yet to hear or read anything that would cause me to adjust my thinking.

In essence, the "more real world accurate" PPM will deliver more accurate results from a potentially tainted and incomplete sample. It seems to me the very item that is causing this problem, cell phones, ought to be part of a future ratings solution.

No Brainer!

Stream.

Arbitron and Edison Media Research just released their Internet and Multimedia study and it's no surprise that on-line radio listening in the workplace is growing fast. In 2007 12% said they listen on-line while they work compared with this years study which grew to a very robust 20%.
We don't question the expense of keeping the transmitter on the air and we can't (shouldn't) question the cost of streaming when it is very clear that our listeners are moving their radio listening on-line.

In many ways this is a dream come true for broadcasters. No building penetration issues anymore; no disparity between Class A and B/C signals anymore; and the opportunity to provide visual artist/song/promotional information accompanying every stream. There are few desktop radios that have RDS.

Of course, with it comes new competition and infinite choice. So we better be at the top of our game. No one ever said it was going to be easy.

Here's a short steaming basics checklist:

>Make sure the stream sounds good.

- decent audio quality (equal to FM)
- well produced
- no dead air
- DO NOT repeat the same PSA over and over and over again

>Monitor your stream feed to ensure it does not go off the air

>Remember your stream lags behind your terrestrial signal and will impact call-ins and contests

>Aggressively promote on-line listening as you would your terrestrial signal

>Make your stream open access (don't limit the stream to a proprietary player)

>Streaming listeners, already computer friendly, are strong database prospects--don't miss out on that opportunity.

>Use your stream to leverage your other on-line initiatives

Imagine When It's Really Portable

Arbitron and Edison Media Research pre-released their annual Infinite Dial 2008: Radio’s Digital Platforms study today with some compelling stats:

• 13% of all Americans 12+ have listened to on-line radio during an average week: 33 million up from 29 million. Nearly a 14% increase in just one year.
  
• Social networking sites have attracted 24% of all Americans (those who have a profile on social networking sites) and nearly two-thirds (63%) of on-line radio listeners have a profile on sites like MySpace, Facebook, Linked-In and others.

These numbers paint a very conservative, yet vivid picture of what the media landscape is likely to look like in the years to come. Dare I say, going forward it will be difficult to be in the radio business without being on-line--streaming, social networking, connecting listeners with clients in new and creative ways, etc.

This is not going away, it will only get bigger and more omnipresent. Take these numbers to heart and prepare now for the inevitable and exponential growth that is just around the bend.