Driving tune-in increases Time Spent Listening
For this week’s Programming To Win column, Arbitron’s Jenny Tsao & Ron Rodrigues take a look at PPM ratings in morning drive. What are the factors that lead to higher morning ratings in the PPM world? Should hosts talk less and get out of the way of the music, or is it more complicated than that?
Driving tune-in increases Time Spent Listening
By Jenny Tsao & Ron Rodrigues
Since the introduction of PPM™ radio ratings service, programmers have searched for common traits among successful stations in PPM markets. Last year, when Arbitron had 33 PPM markets launched, the first “PPM Top Performers” study was created to take an in-depth look at the estimates of the highest-rated stations in PPM markets. Its intent was to provide programmers benchmarks as they strive to increase ratings and shares for their stations.
Based on this study, we concluded that like Diary markets, high Cume is an important driver of successful PPM stations. As with any business, the first step is to get the customer through the door, and Cume represents the market’s awareness of the station’s presence. This study reinforces that getting them to your dial position is still vital to your station’s success.
Time Spent Listening (TSL) is another key element in a station’s share. TSL is comprised of two components; number of occasions and time spent per occasion. PPM methodology reveals to programmers that time spent per occasion is a relatively stable metric at around 9-11 minutes per occasion. Therefore, higher TSL stations are successful due to their higher number of occasions from their listeners rather than time spent per occasion.
Drivetime Dominators
Earlier this year, Arbitron conducted a similar study with a specific focus on top performers in morning drive across the 48 PPM markets. Part of the study focused on music formatted stations which included some analysis of music, non-music and commercial content in a typical morning drive hour.
The estimates that define a successful morning show are similar to those that define a station overall – high Cume ratings, a large number of listening occasions, or both. The study also concluded that non-music elements dominated morning drive programs.
Arbitron’s first quarter 2011 morning drive study examined two demographic groups, 18-34 adults and 25-54 adults. For the purpose of this article, we’ll focus on Adults 25-54, however data for Adults 18-34 is available upon request.
Top Performers, or being ranked #1 by AQH Share in each market, encompassed a wide variety of formats ranging from Pop CHR to NPR to Urban AC and Spanish-language. Amongst the number 1 stations in morning drive, Pittsburgh’s WDVE-FM, a mainstream rock station, was the number one #1 Top Performer for Adults 25-54. The adjacent chart demonstrates those components that drove WDVE-FM’s success in morning drive. WDVE’s high daily Cume and high daily occasions (which increased the station’s TSL) were primary features of their successful share in their market and across the country.”
Ratings success in morning drive can come from a creative mixture of music and personality content. Analyzing the morning drive programming content across all the number 1 morning drive programs among Adults 25-54, we found that non-music or “talk” dominated a typical morning drive hour. The first pie chart below is a break out of what listeners hear on the music formatted top morning drive shows. Interestingly, 34 minutes of a typical hour is non-music (talk) while only 15 minutes is music. The second chart is a break out of The DVE Morning Show, which airs 43 minutes of non-music (talk) in an average hour and only 8 minutes of music. Early in the education of the service, many believed that PPM measurement “suggested” that you need to just play the music and quiet the DJs. What this shows is that good content is vital to the success of the station. These morning shows are spending a great deal of time entertaining the audience and getting them to come back to listen to the station time after time. Music isn’t the driving factor. Connecting with the audience is.
Finally, we find that PPM methodology does not favor any particular type of programming. It shows that mixture of programming content listeners respond to best. With the right programming content and marketing/branding of your product, opportunities for additional occasions of listening and more Cume can result in more listening.
