Thursday, January 4, 2018

DATES SET FOR“18th ANNUAL NON-COMMvention” • PODTRAC’S NEW CHART WASN’T READY FOR PRIME TIME • NIELSEN AUDIO DECEMBER PPM TRENDS


May 2018 is not that far away. So it is not too early to make plans to attend public media’s most enjoyable conference: The 18th Annual NON-COMMvention. WXPN’s Dan Reed has announced that the 2018 NON-COMM will happen Tuesday May 15th through Friday May 18th Philadelphia.

The 2018 NON-COMM starts with an opening party on Tuesday (5/15). Sessions and music showcases will occur on Wednesday (5/16) and Thursday (5/17). The 2018 NON-COMM wraps up with a free Noon show on Friday (5/18). The best place to get updates is Paul Marszalek’s excellent blog [link]. 


WXPN also announced that the Sheraton Philadelphia University City is the official 2018 NON-COMM hotel. A new lodging alternative is available to attendees this year: The Study at University City [link] located at 36th and Walnut.  The Study opened to rave reviews in 2017.



PODTRAC's NEW CHART HAS A ROCKY DEBUT


Earlier this week Podtrac Analytics [link] announced they were publishing a new chart showing the Top 15 short-form podcasts. Podtrac called the less than 10-minute podcasts “Snackables.”

This move drew early praise from observers who feel that Podtrac’s one-size-fits-all chart doesn’t fairly show the audience for short-form podcasts from commercial broadcasters. A day later pulled the chart because of an error found by British blogger James Cridland.

Cridland reported on his blog Podnews [link] that he had found discrepancies in the Snackables rankings involving podcasts produced by iHeartMedia. He saw an anomaly that inflated the estimated audience for several iHeart new music shows.

According to his blog post, Cridland made Podtrac aware of the error. Podtrac must have known that Cridland was right (and their chart was wrong) when they zapped all of the iHeart entries on the Snackables Top 15 chart. However Podtrac didn’t reissue the chart or apologize. They just left it and hoped people wouldn’t notice.

But Cridland noticed. On his blog he posted the before-and-after screenshots on the Snackables chart, shown here on the left. Look how the Top 15 Snackable podcasts began the Top 8.

There has been no word from Podtrac about the future of the Snackables chart.


NIELSEN AUDIO DECEMBER PPM RATINGS: WEEKLY LISTENERS TO NPR NEWS/TALK STATIONS DECLINE IN THE TOP MARKETS

One year after NPR News/Talk stations hit record high numbers of estimated weekly listeners, December’s PPM data shows a decline in the top three markets. Four of the five NPR News/Talk station in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago had fewer weekly listeners than during the previous month.

Readers should be aware that Nielsen’s survey dates differ from the months when most of the data was collected. The December numbers reflect listening between November 9 and December 6. The November numbers actually reflect listening between October 12 and November 8.

Nielsen does this because they promise clients data for 13 “months.” In addition to the 12 regular months, Nielsen designates the last report of the year as a “Holiday Book.” The dates for this year’s “Holiday Book” are December 7, 2017 through January 3, 2018.

A reason for the “Holiday Book” might be because some commercial broadcasters change their formats to 24/7 Christmas music. In some cases this stunt produces a ratings bonanza. But, I can’t understand why it works.

I like some Christmas songs but I want to hear them only a few times of the year. Who are the people who want Christmas tunes all day and all night for several weeks? Perhaps these a people who have fallen and can’t get up.



In New York the best performance was by Triple A WFUV. The Fordham-based station increased their estimated weekly listeners by 7% comparing December data with November 2017 data. WFUV also has many listeners in Long Island that show up in the Nassau-Suffolk PPM book.

Somebody must have let the air out of the tires at Jazz WBGO.



These are the actual debut numbers for EMF’s K-Love station, KKLQ, which signed on in mid-November. In the November LA book, Nielsen credited KKLQ with 1.5 million weekly listeners.  But, those listeners were actually listening to KKLQ’s predecessor KWSD The Sound.  



WBEZ, Chicago, lost estimated weekly listeners for the first time in several months.




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