What Arbitron PPM Test Means For R&B Radio

Programmers, who have spent their entire careers trying to deal with the Arbitron diary system by programming for audience recall, already had a lot of questions about the potential rollout of Arbitron's new Portable People Meter (PPM), particularly whether the new pager-sized device that detects inaudible codes in broadcast signals would again put R&B stations at a disadvantage in the workplace and whether the ratings service would be able to recruit enough minority respondents to carry the devices.

So when Arbitron released the results showing its first individual station ratings, based on a March 28-April 24 test of the device in the Philadelphia market, its key conclusions contained the potentionally worrisome news that while "PPM audiences are higher than the diary for men 12-plus [and] equivalent for women 12-plus," they are "lower than the diary for blacks" when compared with the winter 2002 survey.

But Arbitron VP of communications Thom Mocarsky minimizes that news. He points out that while the AQH for black listening is down slightly (13.9 AQH black persons 12-plus rating in the diary vs. 12.9 in the PPM), he also says that listenership for R&B stations in Philadelphia is "up slightly 12-plus, 1.9 [diary] to 2.2 [PPM]. [In] 18-34, it's up from 3.0 to 3.1 and down [in] 25-54, 2.1 to 2.0. Cumes for [R&B stations] WUSL, WDAS, and WPHI were all up, while TSL for all three stations was down, as it was for the market in general."

Mocarsky says the PPM showed that "individual stations' cumes across the board are higher. But the trade-off has been that TSL tends to be a little bit lower . . . What that is really saying is that people's radio time is not divided between two to three stations as we all thought, but among five to six stations." He also says that Arbitron looked at listening for Radio One/Philadelphia, which owns WPHI and modern rock WPLY, "and for the PPM in April, as a group, their stations had an AQH audience of 32,900 for the total day average. The diary said they had 28,900 people. So the PPM isn't shortchanging the demographic, the format, or even the group."

Dave Allan, VP of operations for Clear Channel/Philadelphia, which includes WUSL and WDAS-AM-FM, says, "My first observation from the data I saw was that the PPM only fixed two [existing diary issues]. First, it showed there is much higher cume for most stations than believed. Secondly, they were able to fix the problem with getting the young white male sample. That being said, I'm a little critical of the fact that they did not do as good a job as the diary does in getting the black audience return. In Philly, Arbitron has always done a very good job with getting an accurate sample of the African-American population."

But Mocarsky says Arbitron's figures for the PPM sample in fact were "within 1% of the universe." In this PPM test, it wasn't necessary to weight response to better reflect the ethnic makeup of a market, as it sometimes is with diaries. The black population in Philadelphia is 17%, while the PPM panel was 16%. Hispanic is 5% of the population and 5% of the panel, while "other" is 78% of the population and 79% of the panel.

A NEW PHANTOM CUME?

Mocarsky also speaks to a number of concerns from the R&B radio side. One was the notion, expressed by American Urban Radio Networks executive VP of entertainment programming and well-known ratings watcher Jerry Boulding, that PPM doesn't measure deliberate listening "as much as it measures if a radio is in your proximity." While Cumulus director of urban programming Ken Johnson believes the new technology will be a wash in that regard?greater African-American listening to non-ethnic formats will be matched by a greater measurement of non-black listening to R&B?Boulding fears "a whole new level of phantom cume."

Mocarsky responds that "phantom cume consists of two components. The first, which Arbitron always maintained, is that your total audience is building over more than a week. We tested it out and found that multi-week audiences are in fact greater than single-week audiences.

"At the same time, what radio was saying is also true, as we see by the PPM data," Mocarsky continues. "The PPM showed [that] because people carry it for more than a week, multi-week audiences for some stations are like double, triple, or even quadruple weekly cumes, as Arbitron suspected. But phantom cume is also all the stations people listen to but are missed by the diary . . . We don't know if that is intentional listening that they simply neglected to note in the diary or chance listening. But the PPM records all listening."

Tied to the phantom cume issue is the matter of whether R&B radio is once again at the mercy of one person making the listening decision for the entire office. Boulding believes "African-American and Hispanic people don't always get to choose what station to listen to at work." Mocarsky responds, "Where is that fact documented? [In Arbitron's] at-work study several years ago, we found that there is a misconception that one person is controlling the radio at work . . . And if indeed that was the case, then there [would be] no listening to R&B stations while at work, so it cannot be credited, anyway. This is something that a station needs to deal with with office managers. But I don't believe it to be the case."

NO RESISTANCE?

Another concern was Arbitron's ability to recruit African-American participants. Boulding sees "a reluctance among blacks to participate in the diaries, especially young males. Are they going to agree to wear these devices?"

Allan adds, "No matter what race, I think anyone is going to feel a little funny about big brother watching them and transmitting information about what they have been listening to back to an entity."

But, Mocarsky says, "we're not seeing that African-Americans are unwilling to wear this device. It is no more difficult than what we see in the diary, and it's always difficult to get young males to participate in any research survey. In fact, no one in our research department has said that any one group has been difficult to get to participate."

Mocarsky also offers that all groups carry the meter for roughly the same amount of time each day. Black respondents take the device "out of dock" for 15:40 hours each day vs. 15:42 for "other" respondents and 15:20 for Hispanics. Their time "in motion" with the devices is 14:58 vs. 14:45 for Hispanics and 15:10 for "other" listeners. And the PPM isn't off when listeners have it "docked" and recharging at home. "When your clock-radio alarm goes off at 6:45 a.m.," Mocarsky says, "and you're lying in bed listening to the radio but don't want to get up, it's still recording that time you are tuned in to the radio."

THE END OF 'WRITE IT DOWN'

By its very nature, the PPM will force programmers to regroup from years of trying to drive diary mentions. WUSL's Allan says, "It changes the whole marketing dynamic. We used to just market toward diary-keepers, and honestly, it was always a manipulation of the diary method. We tried to get listeners to perceive higher listening than probably actually occurred. Now we have to get people to play the radio station and play it as loud as possible in as many public places as possible. So that whole?at work, loud in the public, in the stores, and in the malls?is so very important. But there will be obstacles as well. Many business will not play the radio because of issues with BMI and ASCAP. The law states that if they play the radio for the enjoyment of their customers and not just their employees, then they have to pay fees just as the radio station does."

Boulding adds that "voting for your favorite station goes away [with the PPM]. The concept has changed. You still want people to credit you with listening, but instead of the unaided recall process, which is what the Arbitron diary uses, you now have to measure listening by the loudest signal. You will probably have a lot of broadcasters re-processing their signal to be the loudest, because it could give you an advantage."

Johnson adds that it will put a greater emphasis on "trying to build TSL again. I would also like to see what is really going on, as opposed to just seeing the diary. It's like with BDS. Which stations are my listeners exposed to and for how long?"

Mocarsky says, "If you have a better understanding of how consumers actually behave with the media?which now we see [as a case of] more stations, less time?then you have the information to effect that behavior to your benefit, to legitimately get consumers to listen longer."

Mocarsky continues, "Some of those benchmarks we have lived with for years will change. For example, the old rule about P1 listeners?that 36% of your listeners deliver 72% of your quarter hours?is going to change, because cume is higher and TSL is down. Also, if you look at the diaries, almost half the entries start at the top of the hour. It's just easier for people to record their listening that way. But the PPM shows that there is no quarter-hour that is dominant in listening, and in fact, listening is equally distributed across all quarter-hours. Radio is not appointment listening, which is how we have been programming for years."

Allan sums up his observation of the PPM thus far, saying, "I applaud the fact that [Arbitron] is trying to do something better than the diary, but I'm not in favor of change for the sake of doing it differently. I want it to be a better form of measurement, and that's going to take a great deal more time and study to find out."

"Absolutely people are concerned. It's new and different, and they need to understand that," Mocarsky says. "Our goal is to develop a system better than what we have [in the diary. The PPM] has its strengths and its weaknesses, and we acknowledge them all, but let us look at what we have over a period of time, then judge whether it's better."