Are We Paying Attention to the Latest Research About PPM? Are You?

Noise in the system

I think we have to be a little bit careful when we apply PPM to programming, don’t you?

Coleman Insights did a study of former PPM respondents. The people didn’t choose to listen to those extra stations and they could not remember listening to them, nor could they say anything at all about the programming.

Arbitron and others have recently given us some great research. Listening occasions last an average of about 10 minutes. Clearly, those insanely long commercial breaks don’t work.

But is anybody paying attention?

And consider that clustering of commercials into just 2 (occasionally 3) breaks per hour. Notice also that even with the clear evidence that those long commercial breaks have not increased average listen length, nobody has gone back to the short breaks that good research has always told us listeners prefer.

And what about our customers?

Even if it is all the same to listeners (t isn’t) surely we would be doing a better job for advertisers if we didn’t bury their message in a sequence of 10 other commercials.

That obviously hurts the advertiser. Just the opposite idea of “we’re professionals, here to help you be successful”. But this is just what you would expect when the core competency of today’s radio executive is cost reduction and short term profits, versus building a brand.

Cume or engagement?

Maybe that extra listening to P4 – P8 stations that the PPM respondents can’t remember anything about still has validity to advertisers. But I doubt it. Today, there is a lot of recognition that you need engagement and connection if you’re going to end up with a new customer. Radio seems to be selling our reach. And inflating it at that. No engagement.

What do you think? Am I needlessly concerned? Or could we do a lot more, even when it comes to the basic lessons of the latest PPM research?