Missing The Mission

Even So-Called Formatic Perfectionists Can Misinterpret The Numbers

It's important to know what the mission and goal of your station really is this spring. Depending on who you ask, the answers can vary from "Just get me some numbers, stay within budget, and you'll never hear from me," to "I know we're a young-end station, but the sales department needs more adults. Can we do this and still keep our young-end audience happy?" Sometimes it's kind of like "mission impossible," because often the amount of time it may take to make the adjustments necessary to capture some "side cume" may be considered unrealistic by most managers who do not come from (nor fully understand or appreciate) programming.

So, if you are an experienced programmer, always look beyond the music for new ways to create great radio. Find ways to update and fine-tune your station's sound. Work on your marketing and production skills and knowledge with constructive discontent and programming moxie.

Programmers Are Like Politicians

There's a really good comparison to be made between great programmers and strong politicians.

Like politicians, radio programmers are trying to get the most votes. Politicians want their votes from the electoral college, while programmers hope to collect "votes" from those listeners with Arbitron diaries. The big difference is that in politics, if you get one bad turnout, you're out of office. Programmers usually get two down books before they have to pack it in.

Understanding The Numbers

It's important to understand the numbers that can make a difference in our careers and lives. The numbers we're referring to, obviously, are Arbitron numbers, and there is a story behind the numbers. It is also important to do a ratings analysis; whether you go to Arbitron world headquarters in Columbia, Maryland or use PD Advantage, you should examine your numbers. And believe it or not, the best time to do an analysis is after you've had a good book. Why? Well, because it's hard to find something that isn't there. You have to market to develop new listeners, and usually, unless your station does something to reverse it, cume is always going down.

If you had a good spring book, you could easily say that yours has become a favorite station for your core audience, but that's somewhat illusory. Favorite station is a value judgment, not any measure of listening. Those diary-keepers who listed your station may or may not be partisans. Another common usage term is "loyal audience." That doesn't mean anything, either. There's no definition for loyalty. It's whatever you want it to be.

With no real consensus of what constitutes a so-called "heavy listener," it is probably best defined as anyone listening to a single station for more than 100 quarter-hours in a given week. Imagine someone who spends 25 hours a week with your station. Approximately 39% of your quarter-hours will come from heavy listeners. If they credit our station, we're glad, but it can't help but make us wonder what some of these people do with their busy lives in these fast times. Regardless, these heavy listeners dramatically affect your station's ratings. When stations are up in the winter and down in the spring, you should immediately look for these heavy listeners. Sometimes, a really strong, well-executed contest or promotion can cause these ratings swings.

The average diary-keeper tunes in to a strong station three to four days a week. Now this is a station with consistently strong ratings and it could still mean you're not mentioned three to six days in a given week.

Not surprisingly and regardless of format, Arbitron survey's first day, Thursday, is the highest for listening. It triggers survey enthusiasm and you very typically find people get more involved with the process. They'll listen to more radio stations on Thursday -- the first day of the new diary week. While it's interesting, it doesn't mean they'll listen to your station more.

Stations get nearly 60% of their total week's cume on Thursday. Friday is about 55%. The quarter hour is at about the same percentage level. In examining successful urban stations across America, however, we've also seen Mondays, Tuesday and Fridays as the day in which the highest listening occurred. While Thursday is obviously the day most smart radio programmers focus on, if it's cheaper to buy advertising Monday night on television, you might be smart to buy it then.

Speaking of buying, there are some GMs who overreact and buy into the misguided precept that it's time to fire their PD and/or change formats behind one book of dwindling digits. We personally knew of an owner/GM who was preparing for a major format change after his station's rank dropped from third to sixth in adults 25-54. What he hadn't noticed was that his average quarter-hour rating of 2.5 was the same in both books while two other stations in non-competitive formats had enjoyed unusual upward spikes.

To help everyone avoid similar unnecessary pain owing to ratings misunderstanding, we thought we'd share a couple thoughts. Sample size and the size of the audience are key determinants of the theoretical error and range around an estimate in which weighting and sampling vagaries must be considered.

In the meantime, here is something to think about: If you have a great spring book, make certain it really is great (statistically significant upward movement unrelated to seasonal patterns.) Even if it truly is a great book, take it in stride and remember the law of gravity. If you had a bad spring book, ditto to the above on significance. And if it's truly bad, don't take it too hard. Some of the best programmers in the business, myself included, have "missed the mission," but would never have gotten their start without the help of a truly bad book.

Word.