Episode 188

Nielsen Ratings: Are They Still the Gold Standard? Guest: Steve Allan - The Research Director, Inc.

With over 25 years of radio experience, Steve Allen has programmed a variety of radio formats, with winning radio stations in Washington, DC, Boston, Detroit and Cincinnati, He has also held a number of corporate programming positions, and is now Programming Research Consultant for the Research Director, Inc.

Steve is a self-proclaimed 'data-geek' who is on the bleeding edge of the needs and challenges of programmers in today's radio/audio environment, and the best ways to crack the ratings code for measurement and performance.

In this episode, Steve shares some key points, including:

  • While radio is still the number one audio reach medium, listening is down overall, especially among younger people. What’s radio’s next move?
  • How the pandemic has impacted levels of radio listening.
  • Why ratings should be taken with a grain of salt in PPM and Diary markets.
  • What TLR is, and how it can impact perceived station impact and real revenues.
  • Are Podcasting and Streaming growing threats to traditional radio, or valuable complements to the station brand?

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Transcript
Steve:

The good news is that radio still is the number one audio reach medium.

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Without question.

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The challenges right now and

people using radio is down, I

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mean up to 20% across the board.

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Fewer people listening to radio and

we don't know if we're coming back.

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Welcome to BRANDwidth On Demand,

your Guide to Rebooting Radio.

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I kinda looked for two things.

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How is Nielsen performing?

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How's the sample doing?

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'cause we always tell our clients,

you don't pay Nielsen for ratings.

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You pay them for sample

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VO: BRANDwidth on Demand.

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Rebooting radio with a different

take on all radio can be.

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Now your guides through the metamorphosis.

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David Martin and author of

the book BRANDwidth, media

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branding Coach Kipper McGee.

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Dave: This time around, our guest brings

a wealth of programming experience to us.

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He's programmed in Washington d C

Boston, Detroit, Cincinnati, and he's

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held corporate programming positions

for A M F M and Clear Channel.

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He's a self-described data geek and

understands the needs and challenges of

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programmers In today's radio environment,

he serves as programming research

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consultant for the research director Inc.

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BRANDwidth On Demand is

proud to welcome Steve Allen.

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Hey Steve.

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Kipper: Hey, welcome.

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Steve: Thanks for having me.

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It's really nice.

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I appreciate it.

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Kipper: So today we're talking ratings

and to really take things to their core.

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What do you see as the key performance

indicators, the KPIs that rating services

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like Nielsen or Eastland provide?

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And more importantly, what are the very

first things you look for when you're

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checking out the performance of a client

station or even their competition?

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Steve: Obviously ratings and ranking

and share and all that stuff is what

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everybody looks at, but we peek under

the hood and I kinda look for two things.

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How is Nielsen performing?

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How's the sample doing?

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'cause we always tell our clients,

you don't pay Nielsen for ratings.

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You pay them for sample.

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And if they are, supposed to give you

X number of meters or diaries, you

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wanna make sure you hit that mark.

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But even deeper than that, Nielsen does

a pretty good job on a six plus basis.

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But you really wanna look

at your target demos.

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So let's say you're targeting women

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waiting kicks in, that can really

have an effect on your numbers.

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And we see that happen all the time.

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Beyond that, and that's one of

the services we provide is the

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kind of like the ratings whisper.

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But then beyond that there's, there

are certain things we like to look at.

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How's your t s L compared

to the market, right?

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If you have a good healthy market, P

S L, are you getting your fair share?

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How are you doing on rotating people

through day parts and vertically and

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horizontally recycling them, getting those

occasions and how obviously the, obviously

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is how you're performing in your key

demographics and versus your competition.

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But yeah some things beyond just,

AQH, TSL and Cume, can tell you

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whether your station's doing well.

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And on top of that I like

to take a longer view.

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If you just look at one book, so many

things can happen in one book that you

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really can't base it on, on, on one book.

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You have to look at the longer trend.

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And keep in mind that our, our

mantra is there are four things that

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will affect your ratings, right?

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Something you've done.

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You change your music, change

your morning show whatever format,

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something your competitor has done.

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Same thing.

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Something big has happened

in the marketplace.

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Christmas music, the best example of that.

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Orel, we so all those factors play

in to see how well you are doing.

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And what do you look for

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Dave: overall, Steve, when you're sitting

down with a client station and taking

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a look at the the most recent full

quarter numbers what are you looking for

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when you're looking at those numbers?

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Steve: If we've been with them for a

while, we wanna see how the station's

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trending and what their goals are.

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What do they expect?

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Is this a station that it's

expected to, be a top five

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performer or is this a flaker?

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They're just trying to hurt somebody else.

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So it really depends on what the needs

are, and then we want to give them a

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reality check on what's really happening

over time with their numbers in Nielsen.

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Kipper: Steve, we're hearing lots about

the decrease in even demise of radio

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as a distribution platform or device.

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Which leads us to the question, what

trends are you seeing ratings wise in

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the consumption of audio and especially

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Steve: radio?

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There's good news and there's bad news.

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The good news is that radio

still is the number one audio

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reach medium without question.

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It gets everywhere.

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And while we are not at the

levels we were, let's say 20 years

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ago, it's still pretty robust.

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The challenges right now and the

pandemic certainly accelerated.

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This is home is down.

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People using radio is down,

up to 20% across the board.

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Fewer people listening to radio

and we don't know why, and we don't

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know if they're coming back now.

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Hybrid, right?

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People are not in their car

as much as they used to be.

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So if they're only working three days a

week versus five, that's potentially 40%

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of their weekday listening has gone away.

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There's certainly a demo problem.

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Radio is increasingly an older medium.

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Not unusual for markets to have

their median listening age, right

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around 50 people under the age of 35.

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Especially under the age of 24,

oftentimes don't even listen

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to all radio for an hour a day.

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So that radio does have a youth problem.

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And the third thing, and I think,

we're gonna talk about digital

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and stuff there's, there's a hefty

number, a percentage of the population

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depending on the market that does

not even have a radio in their house.

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And that sometimes could

be as high as 30, 35%.

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At the same time, smart speaker

penetration, as we know, has leveled off.

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Everybody bought one with the

pandemic and now they're like,

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eh, do I really need Alexa?

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But that's not even at 50%.

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So the thought that Alexa would

replace your in-home radio,

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it, there's some of that there.

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Maybe the real opportunity for

radio is the mobile apps, right?

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Because we know that basically

97% of people have a smartphone.

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So if you're trying to reach people beyond

your stick, that's a good way to do it.

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Kipper: One question that some of my

clients have been struggling with is the

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idea of total line reporting, especially

versus splitting off their streams

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for different commercials and whatnot.

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So first, tell us about total

line reporting and for stations

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that don't practice it.

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Might that be impacting

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Steve: their ratings?

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No, not yet.

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Nielsen the whole odd I, the idea

behind Nielsen one is to someday be

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the, the one ring to rule 'em all right?

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Where they, it's television, it's

digital, it's radio, it's everything.

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And they could just sit there

and go, boom, here's your number.

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They're not there yet.

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They were close with a system called

s, I think SDK years ago, where

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they were gonna encode every single.

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Audio player on the internet.

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But that fell through.

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We're not sure why.

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It's still the same thing we

dealt with for 20, 30, 40 years.

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It's recall, it's, I

listen from nine to five.

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No one listens from nine to five.

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People have to go to the bathroom.

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Know.

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So it's you didn't see the decline in

listening and time spent listening as

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much in diary markets as you have in P M.

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And PPM is reality.

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I'll say this, give Nielsen it to do, man.

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The meter works.

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It does a very accurate job, not

only of measuring what it hears,

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but if you extrapolate from that,

it shows your listener behavior.

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If you really dig into the numbers, you

can see, you get a better picture of

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how people actually use the service.

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And

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Dave: Steve, what's your counsel to

stations on streaming and podcasting?

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Steve: I, podcasting, eh, I think the

value for podcasting right now for

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radio from a ratings perspective is

if you've got a, a big personality

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and you can get somebody to listen

to their bits within, I think it's

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24 hours, you'll get credit for it.

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Otherwise it's a money play if

you can make money off of it.

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Streaming, I will be upfront saying

that as a company, and we are big

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believers in total line reporting.

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That said, it's a

business decision, right?

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'cause first off, if you're

gonna encode your stream, you

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gotta pay an extra fee of Neil.

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So there's a cost involved.

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Secondly, if you can monetize your

stream at a higher rate than what

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the stream numbers will help you.

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Then by all means, do that.

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And third, Nielsen does a awful

job and they've admitted it, of

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recording, streaming on earbuds, right?

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They have a headphone adjustment,

but there's no way they can

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accurately reflect that.

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We've looked at backend, server side

numbers from clients and the actual number

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of listeners compared to what Nielsen

registers, it's, the gap is humongous.

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That all said.

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That if you are total line reporting and

let's say you are, your station's getting

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a point, you're one of, eight stations

in the market with a 0.3 rating, right?

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And we all know that's rounding, right?

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That 0.3, somewhere between 0.250

and 0.349 that 0.3 may be a 0.340.

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And you get an extra 200

aqh from your stream.

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All of a sudden that 0.3 came becomes

a 0.4 and your sales manager realizes

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that their rating has gone up 33%.

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And in big markets, how

much is a point worth?

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It's millions of dollars.

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Okay,

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Kipper: so one question that some

of my stations have had trouble

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wrapping their head around at first

is the idea of total line reporting.

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So first of all, can you tell

us what is total line reporting?

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And then for stations that don't

practice it, what could be the impact?

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Their ratings?

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Steve: The start with p M is extremely

accurate in recording listening.

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They, and I shouldn't say listening what

it hears technically, it's what it hears.

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Very accurate of it.

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Very precise in exactly how long someone

is tuned into a particular product.

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Whereas diary is 100% recall and

we know from years of experience

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that, some people fill it out at the

end of the day, but probably more

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people out at the end of the week.

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It's Thursday through Wednesday.

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And so there.

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I just ask anybody listening, sit

down tonight and reconstruct your

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lunch menu for the last week.

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And see if you could actually remember

exactly what you ate every day.

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You probably can't.

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But you wrote, you would

remember what you like to eat.

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And I probably had a

ham sandwich on Tuesday.

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It's the same way with diary, right?

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It's like my favorite radio station is x.

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So I know I listen to them and I

get to the office at nine and I

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have them on at my desk until five.

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And I don't take into account the

fact that I had a bathroom break,

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three meetings and a phone call.

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So you know, it over inflates the

listening and also the difference

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between the two is that you underestimate

the number of stations you listen to.

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Because all the meter has to do is

pick up five minutes of non-continuous

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listening in a quarter hour to

give you credit for a station.

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So if you know you go into the

deli for lunch and they're playing

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another station that you never

listened to, but you're standing

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in line for 10 minutes, guess what?

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You're now in their queue.

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Oh yeah.

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The other thing is sample, right?

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P M is panel based, so it's

to:

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or whatever your market size is.

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People every single day.

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Every week of the pa every day

of the 28 day survey for diary.

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It's an entirely new sample every week.

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And especially if you're in a continuous

diary measurement market and you're

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looking at three book average at 36

weeks, that's 36 different samples where,

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now there's a yin and the yang to that.

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The good news for the diary people is

that if they didn't find your people

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in week one, they might find them in.

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The problem with the P M

sample is households can be

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locked in for up to two years.

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And if all of a sudden and you

see this a lot like the Christian

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contemporary stations where they'll

get a couple of heavy households and

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all of a sudden they're a top five

station for a year, and then those two

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households leave and they drop to eight.

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And we see that with formats.

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Formats go hot and cold based on

a lot of times on panel because

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there's not enough of that particular

format's fan base in the sample.

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Yeah.

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Dave: Our guest is Steve Allen,

the Nielsen Audio Whisperer and

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Programming research consultant

for the Research Director, Inc.

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We've got links to the research director

and some info you may not have seen plus

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Steve's blog and more just scroll down

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Kipper: And we'd appreciate it.

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If you do us a favor, just pass this

podcast along to other people in your

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company or your circle of radio friends.

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Our mission is to help you level up

your game by hearing from the top

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media thought leaders like Steve.

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On air hosts, program directors,

and others that you usually only

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see at a conference or convention.

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Dave: Yeah, think of BRANDwidth On

Demand as your unconventional convention.

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Episodes of about 15 minutes

at a time, on demand.

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Coming up.

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Steve shares some of the

best advice he's ever gotten.

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Spot: Hi, this is Dave Tyler from

Musicmaster Scheduling, here with

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another Musicmaster Raving fan.

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Hi, I'm jeff McCarthy, Vice

President of Programming for Duke

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Wright's Midwest Communications.

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Why do we succeed?

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Using Musicmaster for over 30 years!

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There now you know our secret.

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Ready to become a Musicmaster raving fan?

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Get in touch@musicmaster.com slash sales.

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Kipper: Hey, there.

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Kipper here.

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If your station is so many others,

begging out for some sort of station

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merchandise for sale or even to give

away, but the budget says Uhuh, your

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solution could be just a click away.

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Check out radio swag shop.

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It's in the show notes or simply go

to radio swag shop.com/kipper, your

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audience and your budget will thank you.

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VO: Listen today, lead

tomorrow BRANDwidth on Demand.

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Dave: We're with Steve Allen,

the go-to data guy for us.

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He's the programming research consultant

for the Research Director Inc.

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Hey, Steve, what's the best piece of

advice that you were given in your

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career so far, either in your PD days or

now, and then what one piece of advice

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would you give to someone in charge of

brand management or programming today?

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Steve: I can't think of a specific

moment where someone said, do this right.

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I can recall early in my career when

I got my first big break on the air,

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it was a W Light in Washington dc.

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I was a night guy and Bob Hughes

was the program director Bob Hughes.

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Just a brilliant programming mind.

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And Bob, I would come in early often

and Bob would stay late often, and

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we would just sit in his office.

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I'm just some schmuck kid, that's

just started, doing full-time there.

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And we would play the what if game.

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What if, whether it was music scheduling

or promotions or songs or whatever, most

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of it didn't get done but his willingness

to sit there and banter back and forth

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with me and just, actually care what I

thought and entertain the ideas really

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opened up a lot of doors for me mentally.

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And I think I tried to carry that through.

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My programming career, and even now

it's let's talk about what we could do.

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And so that was the most valuable

thing that I can remember early on

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that really influenced what I did

as far as the advice I would give.

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Now, if you're managing talent, which

brand managers are, and operations

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director, you're managing talent, you

really have to manage to those people.

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They're a different breed.

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And they, they you could joke that

it's like herding cats, but they're

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all individuals and you want that.

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You wanna enhance that individuality

and you want to, you wanna

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really manage to your people.

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There is no such thing as one size

fits all in creative management.

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Some of your people need to be

coddled, some need to be cajoled,

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some to be challenged, some need

to be the left alone, right?

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I think as a manager, it's

your job to figure out what.

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Buttons to push or not to push

on your people, put them in

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the best position to succeed.

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Dave: Great advice.

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Our thanks to Steve Allen, links to his

website, some great articles and more

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all in our regular show notes email.

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We send it out before every

episode and you can easily get it.

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Just scroll down on your

phone for a free subscription.

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Kipper: We'd like to thank

our exec producer Cindy Huber

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for putting this together.

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Also, associate producer

Hannah B for booking.

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And coming up next...

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Holland: News will be

the Savior of News Talk.

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I'm Holland Cooke and in the next

BRANDwidth On Demand, we all know it.

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Political talk changes.

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No mind.

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You already know today what they're

gonna say 'cause they said it yesterday.

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But the news is changing from moment to

moment and I will tell you three ways

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to make your newscast instantly better.

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Dave: That's a wrap Kipper.

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One of the secrets of

success is endurance.

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We'll talk about it in one minute.

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Martinizing.

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Find it in show notes at

BRANDwidth On Demand.com.

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I'm Dave Martin.

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Kipper: And I'm Kipper McGee.

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May all your BRANDwidth be WIDE!.

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