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Many questions remain regarding how Nielsen’s headphone adjustment impacts individual radio stations. Last fall, we addressed this new modeling procedure, which was introduced with the October 2020 PPM survey (see here and here). While the headphone adjustment undoubtedly lifts PUMMs (market listening levels), it only results in a positive impact for certain stations.
Many consider our new Democratic President to be a moderate. Even his decades on Capitol Hill reflected a moderate position. For this reason, I was surprised when his Republican rival labeled him a socialist who wanted to defund the police. Yes, this was a portion of the Democratic Party, but not the person they selected as their candidate.
While Biden won the popular vote and the Electoral College, many states were much closer than a lot of us expected. All of a sudden, some people who voted for Trump described Biden as a socialist who wanted to defund the police.
Simply put, for a portion of the population, the Republican’s branding of its competitor worked.
So what can we learn about this moment in history that can help us in the radio business?
If you are an avid follower of ALL ACCESS, you know that The Ratings Experts from RESEARCH DIRECTOR, INC. pen a monthly ratings column. We are fortunate to look under the hood of the data for the top fifteen PPM markets. This affords us a somewhat wide perspective on ratings trends.
BIA Advisory Services tracks and predicts advertising revenue on a nationwide and local market basis. They forecast ad expenditure by advertising category. In a recent interview for Forbes.com, Rick Ducey, Managing Director of BIA, outlined how ad expenditure will change in 2021.
This is a critical comparison, because for most reading this, 2020 was a miserable year. COVID caused massive shutdowns in retail, entertainment, travel, and restaurants. Is 2021 going to be a rebound year for advertising expenditure? Much of this depends on your definition of rebound.
We sit in a somewhat unique position that allows us to peek under the hood of radio stations in PPM markets across the country. As we work with our clients to help increase both revenue and ratings we are seeing the formation of some notable trends.
There is no doubt that the nationwide lockdown in the middle of the March survey resulted in a negative effect on radio listening. This effect bottomed out in the April book and has since then shown gradual improvement. The emphasis is on the word gradual, as radio’s recovery has resembled the Nike swoosh rather than a “V.”
Specifically, here are some trends we are seeing …
