Your Three Minute Warning

Now that one of the worst kept radio secrets of recent vintage is in the public domain, we wanted to weigh in on the pending change to how Nielsen will be crediting listening in the PPM world.

Today, and for the past 100+ years, stations receive credit for one quarter-hour of listening any time a meter keeper logs at least five minutes of listening within a 15 minute period (:00-:15, :15-:30, etc.). The listening can be one five-minute occasion, or five one-minute occasions, or anything in between. Once the new methodology is implemented, stations will receive credit for one quarter-hour of listening any time a meter keeper listens at least three minutes within a 15 minute period.

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic – this is the single biggest change to how radio is rated since the introduction of the PPM meter.

What impact can we/you expect?

First, if you’re hoping that your shares will rise, you may want to pump the brakes on that idea. Yes, market PUMM will increase. However, so will station AQH Persons. The key metric you should track is how your AQH Persons is pacing against the market. If market PUMM is up in the 25% range, you should hope that you also get that benefit. In that scenario, your shares will likely be flat.

Second, this is really more of an AQH rating play. Since this is a comparison of AQH Persons to market population, we can expect AQH ratings to rise. A rise from 0.3 to 0.4 is significant. You should be planning your sales strategy now so you can be prepared to both sell and defend this.

We know that most of the increased PUMM is being fueled by additional AWTE (OK, TSL). If you are picking up new three minute cume, that is clearly coming from light listeners. You are more likely to get additional quarter hours from your current listeners. You’ve probably seen the example of a listening occasion that goes from :12 to :33. Under the current rules you only get one quarter-hour credit. In the future, that occasion would be worth three quarter-hours.

Speaking of which – how will this change affect occasions and durations? Our guess it that durations will see the bigger increase.

How will this affect spot placements? Does this render bow tie and hour glass configurations moot? Can a case be made for more but smaller sets? Would four 4-minute stop sets be more listener friendly than two 8-minute sets?

A couple very interesting findings presented by Nielsen:

• 45% of all radio occasions are under five minutes are unreported under the current methodology
• 23% are either three or four minutes and will be counted with the new qualifier.

We can’t be certain how this new threshold will affect specific demos and dayparts. Nielsen has indicated that the younger, attention span challenged listeners seem to have more of the 3 and 4 minute quarter-hours. However, we also know that all formats got a lift from this new rule.

Will this modification change how we think about the old idea of quarter-hour maintenance?  Will this cause talent to approach their content differently? And, as always, will there be any unintended consequences?

It’s a brave new world for radio. We cannot wait to see what it will bring.

To read all the articles in The Power of Radio series click here.