Is Nielsen’s One-Minute QH the Next Ratings Sugar Rush for Radio?

In 2024, Nielsen Audio announced a major methodological change. After at least 60 years of “five minutes gets you the quarter hour,” Nielsen changed to three minutes in PPM markets. To no one’s surprise, AQH estimates increased across the board when the change was implemented in January 2025. Cume was also up a bit, but the biggest surprise, at least to me, was how many listening sessions were only three or four minutes long.

The year of increases is now over. I checked Kalshi and Polymarket, and the smart money is betting — I mean trading — on overall radio audience estimates declining year over year. Much like when stations started installing Voltair units in the mid-2010s, the bump lasted one year, and I expect the decline in radio listening to continue.

However, Nielsen may have another ace up its sleeve. While I’ve heard rumors to this effect, someone has now put it in print: Nielsen is considering going to “one minute earns the QH.” This development reminds me of the old Doobie Brothers song, “Minute by Minute,” which could be the way radio and local TV are measured soon. Bill Harvey, who has been around the audience measurement business for decades, writes a column for MediaPost. Here’s what he published on January 28:

Stations have been losing ad revenue share to digital for some time, as is the case nationally with networks, and were frustrated that the MRC viewability standard for digital video was two seconds, while in local TV, the industry convention has always been a five-minute rule in order to get credit in the Average Quarter Hour (AQH) metric. TVB, CIMM, and stations asked Nielsen for relief from this unfair situation and, at the request of buyers and sellers, Nielsen is examining the possibility of changing to 1MQ (a viewer viewing one to 15 minutes in a quarter hour would be credited as audience to that quarter hour) and has begun to deliver Impact Data for clients to examine what this could mean to their business.

While his comments concern local TV, you can bet that if the local TV dog goes to 1MQ, then the radio tail will be wagging with it. The comparison to the MRC digital viewability standard has been noted in this column several times. Two seconds is pathetically low, but as a friend mentioned to me, this was something of a compromise with a crowd that preferred one second. Can you pick up any advertising message that lasts two seconds? Is that a legitimate “impression”? Remember iHeart’s “blinks”? At least those were six seconds long, if memory serves.

I watched Jon Miller’s RAB webinar last Wednesday, partly to see if he would make any mention of 1MQ for radio, but the topic never came up. He did cover other relevant Nielsen topics, and I’ll offer my thoughts in a future column.

Let’s think about the implications of a one-minute rule for radio for a moment, even if only for PPM. Audience estimates will increase. However, we won’t know how much until Nielsen Audio runs some sample data with nearly every instance of listening credited. Once again, the industry will be offered a one-year opportunity to improve the listening experience, promote and market, and try to win new audiences from other sources. And if Nielsen does this “right” — “right” is defined as what Ed thinks is best — the one-minute rule would apply to diary markets as well, even if the effect would be smaller. This potential change sounds positive for the industry.

However, there’s a fly in the ointment. Nielsen’s pricing remains exorbitant based on what the industry can afford in 2026. All the negative Nielsen policies will still be in place, such as “Subscriber First” and the Network Policy that is currently being litigated. In other words, the same toxic relationship between Nielsen Audio and the U.S. radio industry won’t change, except that our ratings will be better — for one year. And the expected decline that will resume one year after implementation will come from a higher level of listening, but it is inevitable.

If higher ratings will help business, this potential change will give the industry one more year to come up with a plan to either bring Nielsen’s prices down by trading cost for a less granular service, or to find and encourage competitors to come into the radio space. Eastlan is already there, and The Media Audit is still around as a competitor to Scarborough. DTS AutoStage, while in the early stages, shows promise. There are other companies that are kicking the tires with new methods that may work.

A challenge to Nielsen Audio would be positive for radio, both commercial and noncommercial. However, it requires some level of cohesion by the industry, which doesn’t seem to happen that often. I heard Mike Hulvey, RAB’s head, say multiple times on last week’s webinar that radio is stronger when it works together. He’s right, but let’s move past the words and on to the actions.

Let’s meet again next week.

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Dr. Ed Cohen

One of the radio industry’s most respected researchers, Dr. Ed Cohen writes a weekly business column, heavily focused on ratings research for Barrett Media. His career experiences include serving as VP of Ratings and Research at Cumulus Media, occupying the role of VP of Measurement Innovation at Nielsen Audio, and its predecessor Arbitron. While with Arbitron, Cohen spent five years as the company’s President of Research Policy and Communication, and eight years as VP of Domestic Radio Research.

Dr. Ed has also held the title of Vice President of Research for iHeartMedia/Clear Channel, and held research positions for the National Association of Broadcasters and Birch/Scarborough Research. He is adjunct faculty in the Department of Broadcast Communications at Western Kentucky University and welcomes your thoughts. Reach him by email at doctoredresearch@gmail.com.