Welcome to 2024! I hope you had some time off to recharge and focus on all that lies ahead in the new year. Let me start my 2024 for Barrett News Media with a question: When was the last time you looked into the Nielsen E-Book? Probably been a long time, right?
You assumed that there wasn’t much of anything in there that’s of value and of course, you’re extremely busy. Let’s consider some important information that resides in the E-Book and gives you a better understanding of your market and how certain characteristics may affect the ratings.
Start with the “Market Info” tab in the E-Book. I’ll assume that you know the counties and, in a few cases, independent cities that make up the geography of your market. If you don’t and prefer not to admit this deficiency, the list is in the Nielsen E-book along with a convenient map.
How many people live in those counties? That data (6+ for PPM and 12+ for diary markets) is right there for you to see. It’s updated annually in October for PPM markets and for the Fall survey for diary markets. Of course, the figures are estimates and while demographers are pretty good at their jobs, the further away we get from the decennial census, the more the numbers veer from reality.
Nonetheless, you don’t have a choice so review these and understand the size of each county relative to the others in your metro. Nielsen has conveniently done the arithmetic for you.
As an aside, you’ll hear the words “population estimate” and “universe estimate” used. While I once heard someone explain the difference between the two terms, you and I are not demographers so it’s OK to use the two terms as synonyms.
Next, you should know how your market shakes out by demographic group. The estimates are all there for you to review by each weighting cell. If your market is weighted for Black or Hispanic, you’ll see population estimates there are well, but even if not, there is another place in the E-Book to find that data as you’ll see in shortly.
Does your market have HDBAs (High Density Black Area) or HDHAs (High Density Hispanic Areas)? That information is also in this section and I’ll explain those in a future column.
If you’re in a PPM market, there are two other bits of information you should review: employment and presence of children. These are weighting variables for the PPM service but not for diary. The latter is the most important because Nielsen rarely gets close to the stated percentage of households with or without children, with “children” being defined as under 18, meaning some odd weights can result.
We’ll talk about how the samples shake out in another column as well, but for now, click on the “Metro Market Profile” tab. Start with the Household Data and you’ll find all sorts of information about your market. Household income, value of homes, rents, average commute time, it’s all there.
Now check the “Group Quarters Estimates”. Do you have a lot of colleges and universities in your market? How about a large military installation? Maybe a prison or two? Any or all of these can have a major effect on Nielsen’s ability to measure younger demos, for example, 18-24.
There are small markets where nearly half of the 18-24 population lives in what can be referred to as “institutional housing”. Nielsen Audio does not measure dorms, barracks, or jails, but does include the people that reside there in their population estimates.
Long ago at Arbitron, we looked at ways to measure dorms, but it wasn’t feasible at the time. If a dorm resident or a soldier in a barracks listens to you, you won’t get credit, but the bigger issue is when Nielsen can’t reach 30, 40, or even half of a demo, those that are in the sample have disproportionately high weights for the age/sex cell. If their listening looks fairly “normal”, that’s fine. If you get some unusual respondents, well, you can guess what happens.
Next, review the “ethnic population estimates”. You’ll see population estimates for Black and Hispanic in the market by specific age cells, regardless of whether Nielsen weights for that dimension. With just a few exceptions, the Hispanic population skews young. In other words, if your market is 15 percent Hispanic, it may well be 20-25 percent Hispanic or even higher in 18-24 and 25-34.
The Metro Market Profile tab has other useful information about your market and about radio listening. You’ll find TSL and cume data in an easy-to-understand bar chart. Take a look and learn some more about what’s happening without having to use Excel or that old calculator that’s hiding somewhere in your desk (full disclosure: my K-Mart calculator just hit 40 years old in September and still works perfectly).
Take a little time, at least once a year, to better understand who lives in your market, and how you make this work to your advantage. Mark your calendar to look at the annual population changes in your market.
Let’s meet again next week.
