Why did my numbers change?

The fact that your numbers will change from book to book is a given. The question is – can you pinpoint what factors caused the change?

The first cause is obvious – you changed your product. One thing we can generally be sure of is that radical format alterations will yield rapid results – look at the all-Christmas stations.

Second, your competition is up to something. Are they marketing? Have they attacked you directly? Did they add a new morning show?

Third, was there a major event in your market that altered listener behavior? Major weather, a big sports story, or a galvanizing tragedy could have caused your fans to go somewhere else during that time.

The fourth major factor is something you need to keep an eye on every survey.

Simply put, how well did Nielsen Audio conduct its survey? Did anything change with the sample size? Were your target demos over- or under-sampled? How was the ethnic sample? Also, were the important geographies well-represented? Monitoring the sample and comparing it to shifts in your audience enables you to better understand the Nielsen Audio impact.

This last factor is where The Ratings Experts℠ at Research Director, Inc. come in. Besides monitoring your numbers every month, we help you keep an eye on Nielsen to make sure you are getting the kind of representative sample you need.

When you use Instant Answer, you get an easy-to-read report card of your station’s performance – within minutes of your data download. And, within hours you’ll see how well Nielsen did.

Knowledge is power and having actionable information at your fingertips will help you answer the question: why did my numbers change?

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