New Device Accurately Measures Radio Audience Data

By the end of 2010, all radio stations in the top 50 markets will be using Portable People Meters, or PPMs, to measure their audiences. But right now, while PPMs are considered more accurate than survey listeners keeping handwritten diaries of what they are listening to, there is not enough information about the devices for small businesses to base their advertising dollars on them.

It won’t be for another year from now before the information from these devices can be relied upon, said Lindsay Wood Davis, a sales and management consultant for Broadcast Management Strategies in Wisconsin. “This is a moment of change,” she said. “Hopefully the data gathered in the next 12 to 24 months will mean advertising will be sold more intelligently and it will be a win-win for the radio industry and the business owner. But the jury is still out.”

About the size of a pager, the PPM device fits on a belt or a purse and tracks exposure to encoded broadcast signals. This takes the place of paper diaries, where participants in radio surveys rely on memory to record what they listen to throughout the day. The criticism of the diaries is that listeners could essentially say they listened to their favorite station even if they didn’t tune in every day.

Some facts radio stations have been able to uncover since the devices were introduced in Philadelphia in 2007 include the following:

• People listen to twice as many stations as previously thought.
• People listen at more times during the day but for smaller time segments than thought.
• People listen more often during the evening and on weekends than previously thought.
• Certain formats have performed better than others.

The majority of industry analysts say classic rock stations have the most listeners, and classic hits, Top 40, news, and country have also shown good numbers. Meanwhile, smooth jazz and classical have posted extremely poor PPM numbers and have been dropped by many stations. Local talk is also not doing as well.

More than ever, small business owners will need to build solid relationships with radio account executives to be sure they have the correct data on which audiences to target. They will need some guidance on what the more sophisticated demographic data means about who is listening and when.

“Small business owners care about selling their products,” said Tom Taylor, news editor for radio-info.com. “Ratings are a guide to that. But what’s more important is, who are those bodies?” Although he acknowledged that PPMs have provided some new information, Taylor said their use “doesn’t change people’s behavior. It just changes how it’s reported.”

Advertisers also need to keep in mind that in medium and smaller markets, audience reach will still be measured the old-fashioned way: by people filling out daily logs and mailing them each week to Arbitron, radio’s equivalent of Nielsen and the developer of the PPM, which translates the data into ratings.

Business owners considering radio advertising should discuss how a station’s audience is measured and get as much information on the demographics as they can, to make the best decision on where to advertise.