And no cume bump!?
Radio seeing a new normal — lower ratings
Cleveland — Public radio stations in cities where Arbitron has switched to Portable People Meters have taken some big hits to their average quarter-hour ratings, but research analysts are advising programmers to let the dust settle a bit before setting new audience benchmarks or changing their schedules.
Where the new meters are used, AQH shares for pubradio news/talk stations declined an average of 13 percent from past shares collected on Arbitron’s paper diaries, according to an analysis presented Sept. 16 in the opening session of the Public Radio Program Directors Conference in Cleveland.
Hybrid music/news stations, particularly those competing for drivetime NPR audiences with all-news/talk stations, saw the biggest losses, according to Warren Kurtzman, president of Coleman Insights, who presented the numbers.
Arbitron is replacing diary surveys with PPMs because it finds the data more accurate, and the meters provide a much more detailed picture of listener behavior, spokeswoman Jessica Benbow said.
The radio industry expected AQH ratings to drop under the PPM system but also a consolation prize of higher cumes, measuring the breadth of listenership over a period.
Public radio, however, is not benefiting from that “cume bump,” as it’s called, on the same scale seen by commercial outlets. “In general, outside of public radio, stations are experiencing a doubling of their cume,” Kurtzman said. “Public radio is not seeing a significant increase in cume.”
“The biggest reason why public radio stations are looking weaker in PPM than diary ratings is because they don’t have big enough cume bases.” Kurtzman said. “We absolutely have to focus on improving our product, but we also have to figure out how to have bigger footprints in our markets.” He encouraged pubradio to do a better job of marketing itself.
What’s your index?
To examine changes in ratings performance for stations and programs under the PPM system, Kurtzman created indices that relate PPM to diary data. He based it on figures from all-news and hybrid format stations in the first 11 markets where Arbitron installed the new meters, though he cautioned that the ground beneath the ratio continues to shift; Arbitron plans to introduce PPM ratings in additional markets, reaching a total of 33 by year’s end.
When Kurtzman created indices for news/talk PPM stations, he found that local talk shows and three national programs gained ground relative to their earlier diary measurements: BBC World, Wait Wait ... Don’t Tell Me! and The World. Every other national program declined under PPM. Car Talk had the biggest loss, indexing at 71, 16 points below the norm.
KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif., saw the biggest drops in ratings performance of the 14 stations included in Kurtzman’s analysis. It indexed 22 points below the norm in the PPM-to-diary index for AQH and 32 points for cume. Competition from all-news KPCC appears to be undercutting KCRW’s ratings performance, he said.
KVCR in San Bernardino is thriving under the PPM system. It is way above the norm in PPM performance — up 56 points in AQH ratings and 84 points in cume.
KUOW, once ranked at the top of the Seattle market with an AQH share of 4.5 in spring 2008 diary-based ratings, was knocked down to tie for the No. 10 spot this spring, according to Craig Oliver, research consultant for Public Radio International. KUOW’s three-month average AQH share from people meters, April to June this year, was a 3.8.
Programmers should keep these losses in perspective, Oliver advised. “Your stations haven’t changed. It’s the way you have measured your audience that has changed.”
Oliver analyzed PPM ratings of 30 PRI affiliates in 17 PPM markets and found that 13 stations lost AQH share and six were unchanged, comparing spring 2008 and spring 2009 numbers. Ten stations lost cume. All but two had declines in time spent listening, a measure of audience loyalty. His conclusion: the AQH ratings of PPM stations may be settling into a “new, lower normal.”
“The numbers are changing, so be patient before you set benchmarks,” said Dave Sullivan, manager of PPM client services at Radio Research Consortium, the middleman that buys Arbitron data for pubradio stations. Arbitron’s diary ratings were known to suffer from “seasonal depression,” he said. “Meters are even moodier.” He advised stations to wait until they have a whole year of PPM data before making big decisions about schedule changes.
Kurtzman tells his commercial radio clients “not to react until at least six months,” he said. “I would be very cautious of making any programming decisions based purely on Arbitron data,” Kurtzman said. “The most successful stations under PPM use both ratings and other research on listeners’ tastes and perceptions. They also use their guts and instinct.”
As for KCRW, the news and eclectic music station that’s seen some of the biggest declines under PPM, its leadership doesn’t make programming decisions based on Arbitron data, and it’s not about to start, said Jennifer Ferro, assistant g.m.
KCRW is still a “dominant force” in L.A.’s cultural life, she said. Social media metrics and the fundraising performance of its musical flagship, Morning Becomes Eclectic, help demonstrate that. She advised programmers not to get “hysterical” about PPM ratings.
This story includes corrections of data reported in the print edition. Craig Oliver compared AQH shares, not AQH ratings, from spring 2008 to spring 2009, and did not compare fall to spring data.
Reported with the assistance of
Contributing Editor
Mike Janssen.
Web page posted Sept. 22, 2009
Copyright 2009 by Current LLC
