How many people are really listening?

Hello, readers of my poor neglected blog. Apologies for not having posted for some time, but the usual deadlines have kept me away. Let’s jump right back in, though, with a look at a new way of measuring radio’s audience that is affecting all formats, including classical.

People outside the radio industry might not be aware of it, but a change is afoot in how radio stations gauge their listenership. Arbitron, the company that gathers ratings data for radio, is moving away from the paper diaries that listeners have long filled out by hand and embracing Portable People Meters — gadgets that can tune into and automatically register a radio station’s signal. This means PPMs should supposedly be more accurate, since they don’t rely on a listener’s possibly delayed or even incorrect recollection of what radio stations they listened to throughout a given day.

The move to PPMs has caused a lot of fluctuation in audience measurements, calling into question what radio stations really know about their audiences. And, as an article in yesterday’s New York Times reports, classical stations in particular have taken a beating. Classical’s share in 12 markets that introduced the PPMs last year fell by 10.7 percent.

I’d like to see more detail about a breakdown by format to help put this into context, but the Times doesn’t offer a full review. This article in Current, the trade newspaper about public broadcasting, does delve into the effects of PPM measurement on public radio stations in particular, however. One analysis presented at this year’s Public Radio Program Directors conference found that dual-format stations — the stations that air both news and music, often classical — have suffered the largest audience declines among public stations, but that all-news stations saw a drop as well. Will PPM measurement prompt even more station to abandon the dual format, adding to a trend that showed no sign of abating this year?

For more reactions, see this letter to Current in which one program director in public radio expressed a positive attitude about the shift to PPMs. Greg Sandow also commented on the Times article on his blog.

About Mike Janssen

Mike Janssen Served as Scanning The Dial's original co-authors from Mar, 2008 to Jan, 2010 and is a freelance writer, editor and media educator based in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. He has written extensively about radio, mostly for Current, the trade newspaper about public broadcasting, where his articles have appeared since 1999. He has also worked in public radio as a reporter at WFDD-FM in Winston-Salem, N.C., where he began his career in journalism and filed pieces for NPR. Mike's work in radio expanded to include outreach and advocacy in 2007, when he worked with the Future of Music Coalition to recruit applicants for noncommercial radio stations. He has since embarked on writing a series of articles about radio hopefuls for FMC's blog.

Mike also writes regularly for Retail Traffic magazine and teaches workshops about writing, podcasting and radio journalism. In his spare time he enjoys vegetarian food, the outdoors, reading, movies and traveling. You can learn more about Mike and find links to more of his writing and reporting at mikejanssen.net.

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2 thoughts on “How many people are really listening?”

  1. Thanks for posting this, Mike. Some personal comments about classical music and the PPMs: Bryan Lowe, Program Director at KING-FM in Seattle, showed me the PPM at the station and explained that because classical music has louds and softs more than other formats do, sometimes the broadcast frequencies fall below the threshhold being measured by the PPM. That means when the music gets soft, all the PPMS in that market will register ZERO listeners. That could certainly skew the statistics.

    Not only that, but the PPM picks up all the frequencies it hears, so if you’re shopping at a store that is playing the radio, your meter will say you’re listening to that station. It doesn’t mean you chose that station.

    Still, the PPM is a lot more accurate than what people report in diaries. I’m sure the methodology will improve over time.

    Reply

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