PPM: Are We This Gullible?

No, I don't mean that there is something wrong with PPM. PPM automatically records your radio listening, and that is fine.

What is making me roll on the floor laughing is the way certain consultants are trying to set themselves up as the keepers of new secret strategies, tips and secrets. These brilliant innovators will save your radio station from the horrors that might befall you. What horrors are those? The low ratings you'll receive if you don't properly manage your station in order to deal with the new realities of PPM measurement.

Wow! Who knew?

There is a book. There are seminars. There are wizards in the night sky.

 

There are techniques

Obviously, there is a real set of techniques that smart broadcasters can tap into to increase their ratings. These are tested ideas that help you:

• Create compelling programming
• Manage your presentation to deal with the fact that (unlike an iPod) you must try and make a few thousand or more people reasonably happy, all at the same time.
• Make it easy to remember who you are.
• Make it easy to remember where you are.
• Make it easy to remember why the listener should come back and listen again sooner rather than later.
• Make it easy for the listener to tell others about you in a way that encourages them to listen as well.

But here's my little "PPM secret". Those things listed above drive your station's success, whether people are called on the phone, fill out a diary, or carry around an electronic recording device.

 

Crash course

Let's review the difference between the diary and PPM:

• The diary misses about 15% of all radio listening. This has been carefully studied and documented.
• The listening lost to diary keepers is a combination of short listens (they punched over to another station in the car while you gave them 6 minutes of commercials in a row) and listening that is actually "hearing" instead of "listening". That is, the diary keeper was in the presence of a radio, but wasn't paying attention, and so did not write it down.
• PPM catches everything. The short listens are now recorded.
• PPM catches everything. Inadvertent listening (which may not involve any actual "hearing") is now recorded. Why an advertiser would accept that is an entirely different discussion. Let's hope they don't figure out that we're inflating the reach of every station through the recording of inadvertent listening.
• Because short listens are recorded, average TSL tends to decrease with the PPM system.
• Because inadvertent listening is recorded, total cume tends to increase with the PPM system.

 

Implications

With the diary survey, stations that are easy to listen to at work will have a huge advantage, because everybody can agree to listen to them, and because they are more background, they don't have to be shut off so people can work. And most people have the easiest time leaving the radio on for a long time while working. It is also more trouble to change stations. With the PPM survey, this doesn't change.

With the diary survey, stations that one might listen to in the car for just a short time might be lost. With the PPM survey, this listening will be caught. A-ha! Can we work with that?

No, unfortunately.

1. Those short listens won't do anything for your TSL.

2. Every time a secondary station's short listen isn't recorded in a diary, the primary station gets a listen recorded that may be somewhat longer than "real". The short interruption isn't logged. But this occurs for every station, and mostly balances out. You might be able to design a station that is used only as a secondary station for in-car relief of commercial breaks, but I honestly can't see much future in it. For the moment, I'll assume that is not your goal.

 

Anything we can do?

Is there anything we can do that specifically helps us with the PPM system?

Maybe. Some very accomplished consultants are insisting that there is. And like you, I'll keep a close eye on what the newly minted pundits have to say. If anything makes sense, I'll pass it along here. My concern is that we don't get distracted from the things that make you a genuinely successful entertainment choice.

As we learned years ago when the Arbitron diary survey moved from a quarterly one month survey to a quarterly 12 week survey: Pick a desirable target audience, and provide them with compelling, easy to listen to programming. It works every time.