(RATINGS) When Does TSL Really Happen?

3-13-2013

This article addresses the paper Arbitron diary, still used in about 85 percent of Arbitron markets. PPM measurement is a different animal, but many of the observations on how people use radio apply to both.

Time spent listening is often thought of as someone listening to your station and documenting their listening as it happens. Not true! Sweeping music across the quarter-hour and other ?games? do not lengthen TSL.

The average person listens to radio approximately two hours per day and samples three different stations within a day of listening. Take that two hours and divide it by the three stations they?ve sampled, and you?ll find you have someone using your station for about 45-60 minutes a day, and not all in a row. Listeners take ?snapshots? of your programming throughout the day: a little bit in morning drive, a bit during the workday, then some more in the afternoon.

After 7 p.m., the bell shaped curve drops significantly with the 25-plus demo as they move on to TV, family, etc. You must win the 6 a.m.-7p.m. ratings to be successful. And that gets down to what benchmarks or ?triggers? you have built in to your programming to make your station memorable. Are you making hourly ?appointments? with your listeners to solidify your features and benchmarks?

Why should someone remember they spent more time with your station than the other two stations they also listened to that day? What makes you different? Is your product compelling, fun, interesting? Are your commercials well-written and -produced, to keep people tuned in? Are your jocks making appointments with the listeners for specific times throughout the day for events, features, bits? You have to get listeners used to returning to your ?store? to shop, every day.

The biggest mistake in radio programming today is overestimating product knowledge on the part of the listener. We tend to assume they know everything we do on the air ? that they know about every promo, contest, etc. That is not even close to reality! Radio is an appliance to the average listener. It is a toaster, a toilet, a microwave oven. Period. The scary thing is that people can (and some do) live their daily lives without using radio! Radio is free; you don?t have to pay $10 for Station A and $20 for Station B. So why should listeners remember what station they listened to?

Music is not a strong enough benchmark to make you No. 1. Don?t get me wrong: Music is important, but to reach your full ratings potential, there must be more to your station than just a music image or ?18 in a row.?

If we as an industry don?t start getting back to localism, fun, personality, local news and traffic ? the ?basics? that listeners tell us over and over again they want from their favorite radio station ? we are doomed to more declines in ratings and revenue.

Broadcasters tend to say, ?To hell with what they want! We know what we should be doing.? That?s the quickest route to the bottom of the ratings. When someone tunes in to your station, they have certain expectations. If you don?t meet their expectations, they will go somewhere else. If you go to McDonald?s and ask for a Big Mac, fries, and a Coke, and they say, ?Sorry, all we have is beer, ribs and sushi,? what would you do? You probably wouldn?t buy anything, and you?d probably never go back to that McDonald?s. Consistency is the key to success. Meet the listeners? expectations, and be what you say you are. Never make them guess what is on your ?menu.?

There are any number of little things that make up a No. 1 radio station: fun (in presentation and sound), community reflection and involvement, personality from jocks, localism, news and information, lifestyle information (that your P1 wants and needs to know about), contests and promotions that fit your station?s image and the listeners? lifestyle. The list goes on and on.

So here?s the answer to the question ?When does TSL really happen?? More than 75 percent of people who fill out an Arbitron diary do so between 7 and 11 p.m. When a person sits down, pen in hand, and fills out the diary, that is when TSL is really happening. In that magical moment, they are ?un-aided? in recalling what they perceive they listened to over the past 12, 24, or 48 hours. What station comes to mind first, and why does that station command top-of-mind awareness?

Ask yourself this: What did you have for lunch last Thursday? Can?t remember? Of course not. It wasn?t all that important. Right? But eating to stay alive is an important human function. If you can?t remember what you had for lunch last Thursday, why should you remember what radio station you listened to in the past 24 to 48 hours?

There is no such thing as ?quarter-hour maintenance.? Never has been, never will be. That term means someone is filling out a diary every 15 minutes, all day. No one does that. Look at your station and your product as a listener, not as a radio person. Don?t try to program your station to impress other radio people, corporate PDs, etc. Program your radio station for the diarykeepers in your market. Period.

Tom Watson is president of A.C.C. Consulting & Marketing International with clients in major U.S. markets as well as in Europe and Asia. Reach him at laxconsultant@gmail.com or 310.498.5990.

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(OPINION) What Will Happen to Radio Ratings?

by Eastlan Ratings CEO Mike Gould

Is Nielsen spending 1.26 billion dollars to buy Arbitron and improve service to their indispensable radio customers or to eliminate a potential threat to their monopolistic TV empire? Today?s Arbitron is a billion dollar company fueled primarily by revenue from radio stations.  They are poised to be swallowed by an even bigger firm to whom radio won?t even be their most important customer. 

Imagine a day this Fall when radio station owners all over America are forced to take an urgent call from their new consolidated ratings vendor letting them know their old Arbitron contract has been torn up ?and that rates are going down!  No doubt this call will come on your cell phone while you and Elvis are enjoying box seats at Game 7 of the World Series at Wrigley Field.

The long-term impact of consolidation is seldom in the best interest of those whose options are eliminated.  If you are still fortunate enough to work in a radio station everyday, consider how consolidation has changed your job.  Then consider how consolidation has impacted the overnight jock.

What about TV?  It seems a widely held belief that the PPM trumps any technology Nielsen currently uses.  Will there now be a second bite at the apple with television broadcasters given the opportunity to pay for the same PPM innovation that radio has already funded over the past decade?

It?s time for radio to speak up.  Demand that your leadership get involved now. 

Consider the past 5-8 years, in most cases; your annual payment to Arbitron has grown dramatically while the radio industry has struggled to achieve even meager growth.   This scenario is about to get worse.  Radio broadcasters win by fostering an environment that encourages competition among its vendors-especially expensive categories like ratings research.  This proposed merger would likely raise the barrier of entry and as a result, discourage any new innovation or competition.

Our company, Eastlan Ratings, has taken 14 years to amass nearly 100 markets.  We have a unique culture allowing Eastlan to grow by remaining patient and focusing only on our core competency: providing an alternative in small and medium market radio measurement.  In today?s business environment, few companies can afford this kind of slow and steady approach within such a narrow niche.

Radio is an industry with a pattern of letting others dictate its fate.  Most recently, radio stood still as the fledgling satellite radio technology re-positioned and marginalized them as ?terrestrial radio?.  Online jukebox services have be allowed to infringe on radio?s brand, too (Pandora is an useful online service but it?s not radio.).  Before that Arbitron was able to exercise their power as the industry?s most influential vendor to foist huge price increases by promising adoption of the PPM would increase radio?s revenue.  Remember ?70 is the new 100??

More than a hundred years before the American Association of Advertising Agencies hired Archibald Crossley to produce the first radio ratings, Thomas Jefferson said, ?(We) are now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

The proposed merger would benefit Arbitron stockholders in 1.26 billion ways.  If you think the proposed merger will benefit radio broadcasters in any way, here?s hoping you and Elvis enjoy the World Series! 

Mike Gould is the President and CEO at Eastlan Ratings and can be reached by e-mail at mgould@eastlanratings.com

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Here's What's Going to Happen to Radio

Mike Stiles

I put off writing this particular blog for a while.  I suppose I was waiting to be wrong, or looking for a development that would change my mind.  But gazing into radio?s future as things stand now, I?m pretty confident this is where we?re headed.  As always, there are choices: adapt and evolve to put yourself in the best position possible, or cling to old technologies & old business models, hoping the whole ?Internet thing? goes away.

Some feel social has little to do with radio, or is just a promotional tool deserving a tiny sliver of attention.  Having spent a career in radio, and now being inside the premiere social marketing platform used by the globe?s most recognizable brands, I can tell you that everything you?ve known and all your radio conventional wisdom is going away.

Don?t glare at me.  In your gut you can already feel it.  You already know it.

Despite the grasping of any stat showing radio still has listeners and advertisers, the writing on the wall is?people want what they want, where they want it, when they want it.  Their patience for sitting through songs they don't like or 5-minute stopsets is coming to an end.  Advertisers want hyper-targeting and accountability.  Their patience for not knowing who heard their spot or what they did after they heard it is coming to an end.

Social addresses, or is well into the process of addressing, all of these wants and needs.  That?s why not only does social have something to do with radio, radio will one day be absorbed into social networks entirely.  I?ll give you a second to recoup.

In case you haven?t noticed, Facebook is setting itself up as the primary delivery vehicle for ALL content; audio, video, gaming and shopping.  The new Open Graph capabilities allow for the creation of apps by everyone from Pandora to Spotify to Netflix to iTunes to Zynga to Electronic Arts to JCPenney to Best Buy and beyond.  Anyone can integrate into Facebook and tap into the incredible sharing, engagement, discovery, and marketing powers it brings to bear. 

Content creators have access to Facebook?s audience of users, which if you haven?t heard, is a bit large.  The numerous ways they can engage that content (Like, share, comment, play, listen, watch, buy, want, etc.) not only grows the content?s audience, it builds relationships between brands and the fans who like them.

Marketers have access to these same engagement, sharing and discovery powers, with the added bonus of more comprehensive, accurate analytics, and more targeting by demo and location, than ever before.  And oh yeah, people can buy their products right there on Facebook via sCommerce.

Your near future: a user who used to listen to radio will head to work in their car, listening through a Facebook app to a high-quality stream of a station they?ve customized to their personal taste.  They can switch between custom stations via voice command.  If they want news, weather or traffic, they can call up instant, accurate reports.  What they?re listening to is being automatically shared.  A friend may initiate an audio chat session to talk about a song or news item.  A display ad on the car?s screen will offer a deal.  Saying ?buy? will put the item in a cart for later purchase at a computer.  Or, since your car knows where you are and what time it is, the ad may offer a deal on a breakfast sandwich at this place right up the road.

Seriously?what are you going to throw against that? 

The above is what ?radio? will mean.  It?s what it will be.  You?re about to jump off a ledge, and whether or not you have anything to land on will depend on how serious you?re being right now about your social strategy.

But I like leaving you with good news.  You are, at the core of your business, content creators.  And the demand for content is skyrocketing.  Without it, there can be no engagement for advertisers.  Screw commercials. You can give marketers branded content.  No, you don?t make the songs.  But you can creatively showcase them.  And you can go back to finding and fostering local entertainers (NOT jocks?I said entertainers), who know how to attract, build and hold audiences.  Their value as product endorsers is about to explode.  Got rid of them all?  Sucks to be you.

You have a known, local brand that, with the right content, can be leveraged into a meaningful Facebook destination.  But that is what you?ll be, a Facebook destination.  Can you be cool with that?  Build your app.  Integrate.  Create your Facebook station. Build a solid place to land. 

Mike Stiles is a writer/producer with the social marketing tech platform, Vitrue, and head of Sketchworks comedy theatre. Check out his monologue blog, The Stiles Files.
Find him on Facebook or on Twitter @mikestiles

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