IN AN ELECTRONIC RATINGS WORLD, THE DAYS OF LEISURELY CHAT ARE OVER
As Arbitron continues to roll out its Portable People Meter (PPM) wireless radio ratings technology we’re learning a few key lessons about how listeners respond to what they hear – and what makes them vote with their feet. Today, in Part One of a two-part look at what we’re gleaning from PPM ratings, a dramatic new truth for talent in all formats: Don’t dawdle – get on with it.
While Top 40 programmers have preached short-and-snappy for decades, PPM makes talent who get even a little too chatty pay a stiff price: less cume. And make no mistake, it’s a cume world now. No more diary-based recall methodology. The PPM simply sits there and logs what’s being listened to. As a radio station manager that means your stations – the only brands you have to sell – had better not be wasting listeners’ time.
Talk Radio The Doesn’t Blow Hot Air
This is especially true for talk radio, both issues-oriented and sports. Many a talk show host has grown up professionally listening to the kings of talk radio but that isn’t always good. The long-winded hour opens (or teases or churns) practiced by some of the most famous yakkers in radio became Old School the day the first PPMs powered up. Now, it's not only antiquated to cruise through a ten- to twenty-minute show or hour open, it's deadly.
Many program directors and programming consultants are now urging talk hosts to trim their opens and get into the meat of their shows many minutes sooner than they used to. It’s an issue for every talk host but especially so in sports talk. The nature of the format is changing from a-bunch-of-guys-yucking-it-up-at-a-sports-bar to serious discussion and creative entertainment. It’s no longer enough to have photographic memories for sports stuff; now sports talk talent must not only draw listeners in but entice them to stay throughout each hour.
For issues-oriented talk, talent has to have a clear road map not only of the hour ahead but of every minute in that hour. Yes, flexibility to jump on a story or ride a particularly juicy call a little longer are still important. But one of PPM’s crucial lessons is that programmers’ long-time habits of loading up the first quarter-hour are wrong: listeners stay aboard fairly evenly – and desert just as evenly – throughout the hour. Thus the need to get into compelling subject matter fast and keep it moving.
Why This Isn’t Just The Program Director’s Issue
As a radio station manager, you’re responsible for every aspect of operations, from sales through to the transmitter and beyond. But your key responsibility is to drive revenue. To do that, you must oversee your programming knowledgably. Which means you don’t get to say, “PPM? That’s the PD’s problem”.
Sorry, Big Cheese, but it’s yours, too. If you don’t understand the rapidly unfolding new world of PPM you run the risk of losing significant ratings because you thought everything was running fine, just like it did in the paper diary days.
With every market that goes on-line with PPM (or achieves “currency” with it, to use Arbitron’s phraseology) and with each fresh ratings report, more useful – in fact, fascinating – lessons are becoming available about how listeners use radio right now. Only by staying current with these new developments can a radio station manager hope to be able to work with program directors and consultants to survive and thrive in the brave new universe of PPM ratings.
Wednesday: In Part Two of our PPM update, a look at how the new ratings tech is dramatically changing what we thought we knew about programming.
