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Las week in Annapolis, Arbitron staged their yearly fly-in for programmers and consultants. . This year PPM was at the top of the list of topics because they continue to roll out markets. There were a couple of very interesting panels that addressed the new methodology and how collecting listening data has changed.
You’ve have probably read all about the spot set placement information that was released and that is important because under the Personal People Meter it is all in or not. Stations need to collect five minutes of listening in each quarter hour.
THE AVERAGE STATION COULD INCREASE ITS AQH PERSONS BY 35% BY GETTING CREDIT FOR ALL QUARTER-HOURS IN WHICH A LISTENER WAS PRESENT AT SOME POINT DURING THAT QUARTER HOUR.-Mike Snyder, Arbitron
In other words, if we get a listener who fails to register 5 minutes of listening in that quarter hour it is as if that listener never sampled your station. If a listener pops in for two minutes, leaves and comes back for another two minutes in that quarter hour but fails to register the fifth minute in that quarter hour we do not get any credit for that 4 minutes of listening. Your goal is like the policeman who tries to keep the kidnapper on the phone long enough to trace the call.
On average Country Radio fails to convert 32% of its cume into AQH. A third of the people listening to you fail to register as a quarter hour because you fail to keep them listening long enough.
Arbitron was able to answer the question, “what do the top ranked stations have in common?” They are able to convert more of their cume into measurable listeners. They have the lowest Quarter Hours missed.
The question may come up as to whether you are better doing more shorter spot sets or two long ones. There is undeniable evidence that listeners leave during each spot set so the fewest number of breaks is the best. Arbitron found no real difference as the spot sets got longer but being down for 11 minutes (chatter/traffic/spots) negates all the best plans.
Arbitron also took on the cloak of programmer/consultant firmly suggesting that stations run two spot sets, preferably around :15 and :45. Follow this scenario. If you break at 13 and run 6 minutes of content. Spots and teases for example. (They proved that listening goes down during spot breaks so I am going to simply state that as fact.) You have 13 minutes of desirable listening in the first quarter hour. Eleven minutes in the 2nd quarter hour and the same for 3 and 4. Additionally you have created a situation of 24 minutes of desirable listening two times per hour. You have wide swatches of desirable listening across the top and bottom of the hour.
If for some reason you decide not to make those clock changes. Look at where you’re at in the hour. Can you provide a reason for a listener to register that 5 minutes of listening? Going into a break at :40 and being out by :46 is going to make 10 minutes of the 3rd quarter hour available and 14 minutes of the 4th quarter hour. You have an opportunity to get both quarter hours.
Spot Placement is very important. On average, stations place about 68% of their units in the 2nd and 4th QH. BUT…the average rank is higher for stations that put between 25% and 50% of their unites in the 2nd and 4th QH (i.e. those who spread the units more evenly between the QHs).
The next significant point made was the number of occasions that people spend with you. I have long thought that getting a listener to go from 10 minutes per occasion (the average time for the Go Country Listener for example) to 12-13 minutes would be a huge win for us. Arbitron says that it is VERY difficult to move that number and we would be better served by increasing the amount of times that we can get the listener to come back to go Country.
So think about how you can get listeners to listen another time during your shift and then another time later in the day (or even tomorrow). You probably already do a good job of teasing and moving the audience forward with music and contesting but sell it as best you can. That appears to be the best way to increase the AQH. Thinking that the listener will probably spend the 10 minutes per occasions if we get them back two or three more times we can make some real impact.
Please also use TWITTER. Each hour you should be tweeting something that will cause a listener to sample your station. It doesn’t have to be in the next five minutes but it should be within the next 20 or so. You can be specific with TWITTER about time because the listen should feel compelled to tune into the station.
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