Gary Marince
by Gary Marince
It’s now “official,” local radio’s reach is phenomenal. Many stations have cumes which are higher than many daily newspapers, cable channels and TV shows — combined. So, here are the questions, how do we know this and what do we do with it?
Recently Arbitron hosted PPM breakfasts in Los Angeles and San Francisco. During these gatherings, preliminary PPM information for the markets was shared and the underlying theme is more of what we’ve learned from Houston-Galveston, Philadelphia and New York: stations reach more listeners than the diary ever reported. Granted, much of the listening is “incidental” or very light listening. But, for this article, we’re going to focus on our primary and secondary tiers of listening, our P1s, P2s, and P3s.
Through PPM, every programmer’s suspicion has been confirmed. There is phantom cume and more people “hear my station” than ever reported in the diary. (This is valuable insight regardless of whether you’re in a PPM or Diary market – good broadcasting practices are the same). As a reminder, PPM relies on behavior, not recall. Previously cume estimates were based on what diarykeepers remembered or recalled hearing. PPM does the work . . . it tracks what a person hears throughout the day and then reports it without filtering whether a station is top-of-mind or really someone’s favorite station.
That’s the answer to our first question, how do we know we have bigger cumes than what’s been reported for years. PPM is confirming this in market after market.
So, what do we do with these boxcars full of listeners? How do we convert these humongous cumes to higher AQH persons and higher P1 counts? The answer is overly simplistic and, of course, the devil is in the details. The answer to conversion from light to heavy listener is . . . make absolutely certain people have no reason to leave your station. Be sticky.
I’m sure, moving forward, we’ll continue to identify important and sophisticated tune-up tips which will help us be better broadcasters, but, for starters, we might all benefit from cleaning up our breaks and content. Think about it, if someone is listening to our station, by choice – not via circumstance, it means they like what they are hearing. If not, they could switch without any consequence – right? Well, if they like what they are hearing and continue to listen, what event would cause them to leave? Certainly lifestyle plays a role here but I can tell from studying report after report, listeners leave stations most often when the station gives them reason or prompt to do so. I feel it’s that simple. Listeners leave our station because of something we’re doing on air at that specific moment (not focusing on lifestyle for the moment).
Next logical question, is it important to set appointments for listening? Will that help retain an audience? This is one of those “pay me now or pay me later” scenarios. When a station opens the microphone, it’s vulnerable. While we have some reports now which can quantify this, we could really drive home the point with the following rhetorical question: if a station is known for playing music, what do listeners do when music isn’t being played? So, as we crack open the mic to remind someone that they can hear this, that or the other thing “coming up at 9:18,” we may unwittingly be creating a situation where the listener will tune away from what they perceive to be clutter (anything that’s not music).
There is no effort here to get jocks to stop talking. On the contrary, talent is essential to creating the station’s brand image. But sharp PDs have their talent trained to know how and when to compliment the music – which is why people are listening in the first place.
Does setting appointments work? I like the legendary researcher Jon Coleman’s line, “it would take much more than a cleverly worded liner or promo to get someone to modify their behavior.” And that’s what would most likely have to happen for someone to be “with us” later in the day.
Next logical question . . . do we abandon appointment setting? Well – what constitutes an appointment? Is playing three Bruce Springsteen songs in a row “appointment worthy?” It’s not the intent or desire of this article to abolish appointments. Rather, I would suggest you are aware of potential consequences of relying too heavily on appointments.
To close the discussion on “what do we do with all this extra cume,” keep this in mind, “what’s on the air tremendously impacts when people tune away from our stations.” And if we have the cume, it’s ours to lose.
Next topic, there is a scenario playing out among PDs . . . in PPM markets . . . which should be avoided. It’s the situation where the PD is relying on the past to get them through the future. I see this often. The market goes PPM and for the first couple of months, the station performs well. The PD at Station A assumes they have it all figured out and they are all set for broadcasting in the electronic ratings world. “We don’t have to change a thing.”
In reality, Station A has a great big bull’s eye on its back. In some conference room in another part of the city, the competition is analyzing every spot break, song played, traffic report and jingle played. And about three to five months into PPM, the call will come in from Station A and it will go something like this . . .”We didn’t change a thing and we went from first to fifth.” Two things; first of all, there is tremendous rating’s compression. Swings from first to fifth are realistic. And if Station’s B, C or D have made changes/improvements, it will be at the expense of Station A.
Building a great station is not a task, it is an ongoing process! We are in a business which requires frequent and real time analysis. The Diary was very forgiving. We could, occasionally, have bad breaks, play bad music and sound bad but get away with it because, on average, we sounded okay. Not so in PPM, PDs are more committed than ever to understanding what people are expecting from their favorite stations. And they understand that a bad break or two really can chase listeners to another station.
Here are the take aways; most stations have phenomenal cumes – and a healthy cume is indicative of a healthy station. PDs would do well to identify reasons why people leave their station and mitigate them. And the already very busy PDs are likely to be getting a little busier.
Here’s to your continued success!
Gary Marince is Vice President of Programming Services for Arbitron. He is available to answer your inquiries regarding the Arbitron PPM or Diary services. You can reach him at gary.marince@arbitron.com.
