Nielsen recently unveiled their upcoming plan to change from a 5 minute qualifier to a shorter 3 minute requirement for PPM stations to get credit in a quarter hour. The current practice is that stations in PPM markets must have 5 minutes, which need not be continuous, inside of a quarter hour to get credit for an entire quarter hour. Nielsen research shows that listeners are in and out during a quarter hour multiple times and their listening under 5 minutes is not measured against the total.
The rating service notes that this change will improve measurability of radio advertising and recapture lost impressions. Measurable ad impressions will increase, benefitting both broadcasters and advertisers. The move also recaptures listening currently lost around the quarter hour break. Today’s median uncredited listening length is 3 minutes long, thus the decision to drop from 5 minutes of required listening to 3 minutes inside of a quarter hour. Their point is that this move is consistent with current listening behavior.
The results of the Nielsen study are very consistent with a preview shared this summer. Overall total AQH lift is in the mid-20s, some of the demos are in the high-20s . Generally, bigger gains are seen in younger demos, formats and markets. According to Nielsen most of the lift is a result of the same panelist listening longer vs new cume being identified. TSL grows more than cume with this shift. AQH grew by as much as 24-27%. Cume grew between 7-11%. The strength of the Formats showed almost no change as to which led in rank, but music formats showed more growth percentagewise than the spoken word formats.
Well known consultant and radio advocate Fred Jacobs similarly addressed Nielsen’s changes in a recent blog for Jacobs Media. Among his observations he questions that given this pending change in PPM markets, do we rethink stop-set placement? The answer IMO is Yes. Edison Research Co-Founder and President Larry Rosin and I have long debated airing two longer stop-sets versus 4 shorter breaks per/hour. Larry being on the side that shorter is desired by the audience, and me on the longer side of the debate. My position, until this change, was one based on Nielsen methodology. Larry’s on highly credible findings.
Given this change, it is quite possible that 4 breaks of shorter duration could be extremely beneficial. It’s also possible that giving more reasons for a listener to leave a station will deflate the possible increases created by Nielsen. Rosin says “The audience belief is that a break should be the length of a song. But playing the PPM game where it’s clear the start of a break is maximum tune-out time means in theory that one long break per hour would probably be best, but no one has the nerve to try that.”
These changes will also require revisiting song turnover by format, story repetition on spoken word (News, Talk, and Sports) stations, frequency of airing promotional messages, and could lead to some interesting changes in how we look at audience turnover. The art of the tease has always been important, but I believe this move magnifies its value as teasing ahead should happen at the quarter hours. It is arguable if content breaks should be shorter, with more of them, or longer and fewer of them. I favor the former because we’re living in a TikTok world, but these are things we will learn with time and through analysis.
It remains unknown if the advertising agencies will accept the results of these changes as valid rating results or point to “Fuzzy Math” and discount the significant growth that’s expected in AQH. Many of us who have sold advertising at one time, or another know that the best buyers are cunning individuals who use demos outside of your target audience, point to anomalies, or ask for rolling averages, as a way to negotiate a lower rate. They’re negotiating. That’s what they do.
Nielsen’s new approach to measurement is projected to roll out in Spring 2025.
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