In our continuing series on Arbitron's Portable People Meter, we spoke with Randy Kabrich. Randy Kabrich has been a broadcasting consultant for over 20 years. An early critic of the PPM, Kabrich says the device has come a long way over the past 5 years and that is due to the people now in charge at Arbitron.
- What is your impression on how things have changed going from the diary to the PPM?
Clearly, the PPM roll out had a rocky start. Fortunately for Broadcasters, Arbitron was forced to change their long standing policy of simply trying to schmooze radio while cramming what they (Arbitron) wanted down Radio?s throat. Fortunately, for the most part, the schmooze only people have left the building. I give a lot of credit to Carol Hanley and her crew for trying to be more open to change and simply not operate in a certain way because that was the Arbitron way.
Considering where we were with PPM 5 years ago, PPM is light years beyond that. Quite frankly, I doubt that would have occurred without the public spectacle that happened during the early years. Do many, myself included, wish the sample was larger and more robust? Obviously, but considering where we are today, tremendous strides have been made.
- Do you think the listeners notice a change at all over the way programmers program?
Good Radio will always be good radio. The change from diary to PPM in large markets did not make bad stations all the sudden rise to the top of the rankers ? or vice versa. Arbitron has changed radio landscape (and thus programming) with their methodology for as long as I can remember. At the end of the 70s, there was a Beautiful Music station in virtually every market that, if not #1, was close to it. Surveys were 4 weeks long (instead of 12 weeks) and the screening/sampling was A LOT different. Methodology changes in 1980 literally put those stations out of business overnight.
Top 40 was in serious trouble in the early 90s. Arbitron added 50% additional sample to most markets which allowed the big cume Top 40 stations to break out of the compressed pack and again become competitive. There was a direct correlation to which markets had the added sample and how well Top 40 performed in those markets. It is no secret that ethnic focused formats and female focused formats have had a tougher time adjusting to PPM than Male focused stations. Without a doubt, that clearly goes into the equation when deciding what to air on a frequency. So 2011 is no different than 1980.
- What is your advice to programmers on how to maximize ratings for the PPM?
That?s a book unto itself, but as noted earlier, great radio will always be great radio. The short answer, make sure everything that comes out the speakers is the best it can be.
- Is the system more accurate or not?
More accurate? What is the benchmark for accuracy? Neither system is perfect. I can show you ratings from diaries where for the 15 minutes the OJ verdict was announced News/Talk stations skyrocketed to 15/20 shares during that Quarter Hour. One only has to look at 9/11/2001 and see 1010 WINS in NYC go as high as any station in the market has been in probably 30+ years, all beginning in the 8:45am Quarter Hour and building each Quarter Hour. And I remind you of how respondents were trying to find a way out of Manhattan with all transit services, bridges, tunnels etc closed down as they literally were running for their life. Yet, they seemed to fill out the diaries properly.
Does PPM record what people listen to more accurately?
-Yes and no. When it detects the encoded signal, absolutely its more accurate than the diary. However, let?s not forget the only testing we have information for showed that over 40% of the listening was not captured. One can ?assume? that all missed listening would be random and thus affecting everyone equally, however, that is just an ?assumption? which no data has ever been presented one way or the other.
The skeptic that I am, in my personal opinion, I always believed that this system was pushed by Arbitron as it is more automated and probably allowed them to reduce their back end workforce, and thus reduce their payroll expenses significantly in those areas (Not that radio has not had a reduction in body counts either). Luckily the new found semi-openness of Arbitron has allowed radio to get PPM from the quasi-disaster launch to a much better operational system today.
So again, both systems have their advantages. Both have their disadvantages.
Randy Kabrich can be reached via e-mail, randy@kabrich.com
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