Behind the scenes, Arbitron has been putting together the details on this new service for many months. More discrete demos Persons and unduplicated cume may come later. This will be done somehow by combining ratings from the PPM markets with server-side log file data provided by webcasters and de-duplicating listening to create local reports. Diary data will also be added to national reports too.
This service will go through lots of testing before any national, and then local, market reports are released. There are at least two huge challenges— balancing the needs of its long-held and current customer base i. The second challenge will be getting everyone to agree to share their webcast server log files. If some networks or webcasters choose not to share their data,then this inherently devalues the service.
In a nutshell, if Arbitron measures radio alongside pureplay webcasters, then the latter become legitimate contenders for all the potential revenue from ad buyers. The quotes below from Inside Radio, December 19th were taken just two weeks after Arbitron first shared plans behind its new total audience measurement service.
Arguably, these remarks are telling in that they view the pureplay webcasters through the lens of how the audio industry is aligned and how the audio is delivered, but with little regard to how the listener perceives them — which generally, is that they are all radio. Pandora is already doing this , which is upsetting a lot of people in broadcast radio. In an effort to differentiate broadcast metrics and streaming metrics, Arbitron recently released a short letter to its clients, clarifying the difference between the two, in Thoughts on Comparing Audience Estimates.
In the past, technology has been the big barrier to accurately measure the media people consume. Can radio span from signals from tall towers in big fields to a one-to-one streaming service like Pandora which consists of hundreds of thousands of consumer-created stations? And if not, then the radio or audio industry needs to quickly find a consensus and then it can move closer to a common measurement.
Regardless of what the answer actually might be, advertisers want to measure all the sources that the consumer can choose from and they want a more holistic view of the entire audio marketplace that would allow them to follow the listeners throughout the day from platform to platform.
As Inside Radio noted, both buyers and sellers say universal audio measurement is needed to drive more dollars into the streaming audio marketplace. Recognizing these problems, Arbitron has rolled out a device called a portable people meter PPM for tracking radio listening, both at home and on the street. At this point, the company is using it in only a few markets—for example, New York, Philadelphia, and Houston—though it expects it to eventually replace the diary in all U.
The PPM is a mobile phone-sized device that consumers wear throughout the day. It works by detecting identification codes that can be embedded in the audio portion of any transmission.
The PPM can determine what consumers listen to on the radio; what they watch on broadcast, cable, and satellite TV; what media they stream on the internet; and what they hear in stores and entertainment venues. You've probably already noticed a flaw in this system: just because a person passes by a radio station's sound doesn't mean that he or she is really listening.
It's certainly a problem, but executives believe the PPM is still superior to the diary method. Another controversy arose during the early use of the PPM. Executives at stations targeting African-American and Latino audiences complained that Arbitron did not include enough people with those characteristics in its PPM samples. The result, say the executives, is that ratings for their radio stations dropped drastically. In the face of angry protests, Arbitron executives agreed to make their panels more representative.
Although no one believes Arbitron data come close to being flawless, most local stations and advertisers use the diary-based Arbitron rating results because they are the best data available. When ratings are reported to subscribing stations, employees await the news with trepidation. Ratings are to station employees what report cards are to students: rows of raw numbers that summarize many months of effort.
One rating point equals 1 percent of the population in a market. Stations are considered successful if they manage to garner only four or five rating points.
Yet the raw number is often not the only thing of interest to a radio advertiser. For example, a concert promoter may want to know which station in town attracts the greatest share of the young adult audience so that she can effectively buy advertising to attract a rock band's core audience. In the past, technology has been the big barrier to accurately measure the media people consume.
Can radio span from signals from tall towers in big fields to a one-to-one streaming service like Pandora which consists of hundreds of thousands of consumer-created stations?
And if not, then the radio or audio industry needs to quickly find a consensus and then it can move closer to a common measurement. Regardless of what the answer actually might be, advertisers want to measure all the sources that the consumer can choose from and they want a more holistic view of the entire audio marketplace that would allow them to follow the listeners throughout the day from platform to platform.
As Inside Radio noted, both buyers and sellers say universal audio measurement is needed to drive more dollars into the streaming audio marketplace.
Instead, the current confusion of multiple systems measuring audio in multiple ways will likely continue. Independent players such as Triton could make the most of the opportunity, particularly if the marketplace cannot wait for Arbitron to move forward.
Following ESPN, Katz Marketing has recently signed with the Media Behavior Institute for a service to better understand how radio fits into the day in the life of media consumers. This service consists of panelists being given a smartphone with an app which they use to fill out an eDiary in minute increments over a day period. Recent investments by NPR member stations in webcast metrics are timely as more listening shifts from broadcast to digital.
Having webcast metrics will enable member stations to sell digital underwriting spots separate from radio and potentially open the door for advertisers with digital budgets who otherwise might not have considered radio. This service could be a critical one as digital streaming becomes more important. A report and webinar for member stations highlighting Streaming Media Sponsorships will be announced in February. What ratings do NPR and member stations currently have access to?
Why will we not see a significant boost from digital listening? What will be the biggest challenges with this new service? Why are broadcasters unhappy with aservice that would measure all audio? How has Arbitron responded to the backlash?
0コメント