February 25, 2025
The big reveal continues as The Ratings Experts from RESEARCH DIRECTOR, INC. – in close proximity to our fellow numbers nerds from XTRENDS – are back to see what AMERICA’S new radio ratings reality has produced. If you tuned in for our previous episode, you saw that the growth in market PUMM across the four demos we examined was all over the place. Will that trend continue with our latest installment? Read on.
The JANUARY survey ran from JANUARY 9TH through FEBRUARY 5TH. It contained one three-day weekend, playoff football, and some really lousy weather. Oh, yeah, it also measured listening differently than ever before.
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February 24, 2025
And so it begins. Welcome to the first book of the rest of your radio life. The JANUARY survey marks the beginning of the three-minute rule era. The Ratings Experts from RESEARCH DIRECTOR, INC., along with our compatriots from XTRENDS, have been anxiously awaiting this moment. Yes, we are ratings nerds.
A few housekeeping notes. The survey ran from JANUARY 9TH through FEBRUARY 5TH. There was a federally-mandated three-day weekend in there, playoff football, and some really lousy weather.
Besides our normal analysis of the numbers, we will be adding in a new wrinkle. We always show how the market cume has changed every month. As we adjust to this new reality, we will also be listing the percentage change of market PUMM by demo. For this book, we will compare it to the previous survey. In future roundups, we will look at year over year.
Let’s do this…
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February 20, 2025
One of the buzz phrases spawned by the digital age is brand safety. In the Wild West that is digital ad placement, many brands have no clue as to where their ads appear. They might think they know, but the reality is a bit fuzzy.
In his most recent newsletter, Bob Hoffman – aka The Ad Contrarian – wrote about a peer reviewed study written by Dr. Krzysztof Franaszek, the head of Adalytics. I won’t quote the entire article, but these few paragraphs should startle you:
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February 13, 2025
I live in a two book a year market that is dominated by two radio groups.
Group #1 has many live and local stations. They also recently established a local digital news site. This group is frequently seen in the community doing, well, community stuff. In other words – they have a presence.
To the best of my knowledge, the other group has zero local live personalities. I have rarely seen them in the community. When I have, their “presence” consisted of a sound system…and nothing else. I frequently drive by their local so-called headquarters. The parking lot is usually empty, and the building has been up for sale for several months. It would appear that this group is completely abandoning the market.
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February 6, 2025
As an industry, we have a tendency to play a lot of defense. While radio has weathered many storms over the last 100 years, the dawn of the digital age drastically and dramatically changed the media landscape.
Yet, to paraphrase a quote from Monty Python – “We’re not dead yet.”
We need to play more offense. I want to highlight two areas where the power of radio continues to shine.
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