When PPM was commercialized in the ‘aughts, a couple of new weighting variables were added. For years, we knew that Arbitron weighted the diary service estimates on age/sex, geography, and race/ethnic, depending on the composition of the market. That carried over to PPM although adding 6–11-year-olds brought in two more demographic subcategories. PPM debuted two new variables: employment status (for persons 18+) and the presence of children in the home, with children defined as someone 17 or younger living in the household.
Weighting variables are chosen because they have a reasonably strong relationship with radio listening. Obviously, age, gender, geography, and race or ethnicity make sense. Working status is reasonable as well because people who work full or part time probably commute (although I wouldn’t have used the word “probably” prior to COVID) and may listen at work, while those who don’t work spend more time at home and likely watch more video content.
Presence of children seemed to make sense as well, statistical analyses aside, in that prior to kids having cell phones and in the days before lots of streaming, a child may dictate what is heard in the car. So far, so good.
The problem with that last weighting variable was that Nielsen has done a poor job of getting the sample anywhere near the universe estimate, in other words, what they believe is the accurate percentage in the population. If you subscribe to Nielsen Audio in a PPM metro, I strongly urge you to check the latest E-book for your market, click on the “Population Estimates & Sample Summary” at the top, and then choose the “Population Estimates and Average Installed and In-Tab Persons by Demographics” option on the left. Go down through the table and look at “Persons With Children in HH”. You’ll find a number estimating the persons and next to it a percentage for your market. A few columns to the right, you’ll see how the sample performed for that survey. Go ahead and do it…I’ll wait for you.
I’m not Nostradamus or even Kreskin (if you remember The Amazing Kreskin), but my crystal ball says that the sample will be well below the population percentage, in fact, the sample may be way off, probably by ten percentage points or more. Those of us who look at this sort of thing have known about this problem for a long time. When I was at Cumulus, this happened in just about every one of the company’s PPM markets.
What this means to you is that ceteris paribus (Latin for all other things being equal and you’ve now picked up a usable Latin phrase!), panelists who live in households with someone under 18 are worth more. Each quarter hour that they spend with a radio station represents more audience than a panelist from a household without children. It’s that simple.
Beyond complaining to Nielsen, you may be able to take advantage of the situation. When Scott Jameson was VP/Classic Rock for Cumulus and PD of KQRS in Minneapolis-St. Paul, a heritage classic rocker, we’d talk about the PPM situation in his market. At the time, Nielsen was perhaps 15 points low on households with children, so Scott invented a couple of contests aimed at families. One was “Kiss Kids” when Kiss came to town for a concert (thanks to Scott for the pic!). The goal was to target panelists with children at home who could contribute “heavier” quarter hours. It’s impossible to know if the stunts worked, but this approach certainly couldn’t have hurt.
You can do the same in your PPM market. Look at the sample performance and then start brainstorming. I don’t think it matters what formats you have, it’s just a matter of what angle you take to entice listening from households with children. Be original. You don’t have to spend a lot of money (which you probably don’t have anyway) but think about ways to exploit Nielsen’s woeful sample.
In the back of my mind, this is not the way to “do good radio” but we’re all fighting for ratings. This might be a small piece, but as we know from Any Given Sunday, we have to fight for those inches or in our world, those heavyweight quarter hours.
Think about the children, however corny and contrived it might sound, but your bonus may depend on it!
Let’s meet again next week.
