Readers write
Get comfortable with PPM ratings. When they come to town, they're the only ones that matter
To the editors:
Karen Everhart's article about the transition to PPM [Portable People Meter] methodology (Current, Sept. 21, 2009) makes a number of valuable points. I'd like to add a couple of thoughts based on more than a year's work with PPM data for KPCC and the Los Angeles market, and six months with PPM data for Minnesota Public Radio and Minneapolis/St. Paul.
If and when your market moves from diaries to PPMs, draw a big red line on your calendar and move on.
Comparing diary to PPM data may be momentarily interesting, but it has limited value beyond establishing new baselines for your station and your market. When you do look at diary and PPM data — which you should only do internally — avoid comparitive language. Your ratings are not better, worse, higher or lower . They are just different.
The PPM and diary methodologies are different enough that they each produce their own truth. You may prefer one truth over the other, but the only truth that now matters is the PPM. That's the only truth recognized by clients, funders, marketers, managers and other programmers, so don't lose any sleep over how your toplines used to look back in the diary days.
As Warren Kurtzman, Craig Oliver and Dave Sullivan all basically say in the article, don't panic. Let a few months of data pile up, build some trend charts, and get comfortable with the data. Do not make any immediate changes.
Monthly PPM reports allow you to see major trends faster than diary data could. You may be able to make changes based on, say, six months of PPM data rather than waiting for nine months or a year of diary data. The granularity of PPM data also gives you a sense of listening during individual days, weeks and months, something we never saw in diary data where momentary ups and downs are washed out by quarterly averages. We've not quite gotten to Nielsen-style overnight ratings, but this is a step in that direction.
Finally, remember that everybody in your market is in the same boat. The sales managers and program directors at your local commercial competitors have the same hopes, fears and anxieties as you. In fact, since public radio toplines are now part of Arbitron's public releases, your commercial competitors may be losing sleep over you, so get out there with your new data and make your case.
The transition can be fun. Really!
Craig Curtis
Program Director
Southern California Public Radio
KPCC, Pasadena
Web page posted Oct. 16, 2009
Copyright 2009 by Current LLC
