WAMU TRENDS UP IN NOVEMBER PPM RATINGS • MORE NIELSEN DIARY MARKET INFO AVAILABLE SOON • WHAT IS “THE RRC?”

It is nice to report that WAMU in Washington, DC, is making up for lost ground in Nielsen Audio’s PPM ratings for November.

The stations still has a way to go to beat its all-time highs set in April 2017 (10.0% AQH share) and October 2016 (861,400 weekly listeners).

WAMU’s monthly PPM numbers have been going up recently. 

The AQH share has increased for the past five months and estimated weekly listeners have been trending up since August.

Why is this happening? 

WAMU has made no major schedule changes. Folks we’ve spoken with who live in the DC area say that WAMU “sounds better” and many on-air hosts have picked up their speaking pace. But, these variables are hard to measure.

Another factor might be high profile mid-term election races. We saw a “Trump bump” around the 2016 election. Perhaps the recent “Trump dump” is causing some excitement.

Truth be told, the November Nielsen PPM ratings is mainly measuring listening that happened in October. 

Nielsen has an unusual yearly calendar. There are 13 "Nielsen months." Nielsen adds an extra "Holiday" period.

We don’t pay a lot of attention to the Holiday report because lifestyles change during the Christmas holiday. Plus, public radio has no stations playing all “Christmas music.” This is another reason we like public radio.

All-news WTOP AM/FM was down a bit with a 9.5 AQH share and 1,118,700 estimated weekly listeners. All-conservative talk WMAL was up compared to the previous month.  In November WMAL had a 5.1 AQH share and 406,200 AQH listeners.

NIELSEN TO RELEASE RATINGS DATA FOR NON-SUBSCRIBING STATIONS IN DIARY MARKETS

The Radio Research Consortium (“RRC”) sent a message last week saying Nielsen Audio has announced that, beginning with the Fall 2018 survey, it will report estimates for ALL non-commercial stations in diary-based markets. Tobe listed, noncom stations must meet Nielsen’s minimum reporting standard. A station must have 0.1% metro AQH rating to be included in the published information.

This is good news for Spark News readers who depend on us for noncom ratings data. The Fall 2018 numbers, which will be available in January 2019, will include more stations so we will be able to report estimates for stations such as Alt Rock WAPS in Akron and Classical KCME in Colorado Springs.

However RRC doesn't seem too pleased with Nielsen’s decision, perhaps because they might loose paying station customers. RRC said in their message to stations;

Note: Although Nielsen is making a change in its reporting, RRC’s position on Tapscan ranker reports is that they are not the best way to present your station to potential underwriters.

Plus, stations that don’t subscribe to Nielsen’s ratings may not use the data for any purpose. If you do, there may be an unwelcome knock at your door.

SO, WHO OR WHAT IS “THE RRC?”

From time-to-time we get questions from readers wondering why we credit we credit “RRC” when we report the ratings. Here are the basics:

The Radio Research Consortium [link] “RRC” is a nonprofit organization that is a vendor of Nielsen Audio data for noncommercial radio stations. RRC has a rich history and has been a vital resource for public radio since it began brokering Arbitron data in 1981. 

RRC began when Tom and Joanne Church, both former Arbitron employees, brought together a group of 14 stations to pool their money and learn the Arbitron ratings for their stations.

Prior to 1981, few people in noncom radio paid attention to the ratings. The common wisdom in the pre-ratings era was that public radio stations had “a small but loyal audience.” When stations saw the Arbitron numbers, the learned that the common wisdom was only partially correct.

Public radio stations did have small audiences but listeners were not loyal at all. This caused the leaders of public radio to “think audience” and improve service.

The founders of the PRPD in 1988: (Left to right)

the RRC’s Tom Church, Peter Dominowski, Marcia Alvar,

Craig Oliver, Don Otto & Ellen Craft

RRC data was important to founding of the Public Radio Program Directors association (PRPD). 

Knowing audience trends taught many stations to focus their formats on specific types of programming such as 24/7 News/Talk, Classical music, etc. Commercial stations had been doing this for many years with great success.

Public radio’s use of ratings, and the development of consistent formats, caused some observers to protest what they considered a “dumbing down” of the content and the marginalization of some types of programming.

However, it is hard to dismiss the positive impact of using the ratings. By paying attention to the audience – what listeners like and what they don’t – public radio has evolved from a primarily subsidized economy to an independent, private economy where listeners and underwriters contribute the largest share.  

Today RRC is not only a vendor of ratings data, it also offers training, presentations and custom reports. According to RRC’s 2017 IRS 990 tax filing, RRC reported $6.6 million in revenue. During the same tax year, RRC paid $4.8 million to Nielsen for the data. The majority of the remaining amount was spent on salaries.