There has not been a more revolutionary “game changer” for the measurement of success for terrestrial radio than Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM). At Strategic Solutions Research, we plan to continue to examine the many considerations, ramifications and solutions for your questions in this blog in the weeks and months ahead, including in this installment.
Whether you love it, hate it, or are still undecided, it is our experience in examining research with radio stations across the country, across all formats and demographics, that the PPM is, overall, a more accurate system for measuring real listening behavior. True, concerns related to low sample numbers are legitimate, especially when you break the sample down to narrow target demos and times of day. Yet, PPM is proving to be a much better gauge of actual listener habits and preferences—something any good programmer should want to know and learn from.
What has quickly become apparent with PPM reporting is that some “big brands” in the diary methodology are not nearly as big under PPM.” With diaries, many stations with big morning shows and that were heavily marketed traditionally enjoyed greater ratings due to popular vote and recall and, in turn, written in recognition is not always in line with true listenership. The PPM is showing, by contrast, that people actually like to sample and button push much more than they ever cared to admit (or recall). That gets, then, into the whole issue of AQH vs. Cume. More on that next time.
So, as PPM levels playing fields (and sometimes turns station rankings on their ear) through the shaving of variant percentage points between competitors, what key lessons can be learned? Two stand out most: First, the vital importance of establishing and maintaining a strong listener connection in attracting an audience and, secondly, an ongoing effort by radio programmers to appropriately assess information culled from PPM data and/or content analysis to learn the “tune-out” factor and adapt accordingly. Believe it or not, there can be a method put to what many in the radio business are still referring to as “madness.”