The Infinite Dial

There is a great article from the Wall St. Journal's Sarah McBride about the changes PPM is bringing about in Philadelphia. One of the 'shake-ups' reported is that Men listen to a lot more radio than reported in the diary methodology, and that rock is more popular than heretofore thought in Philadelphia, something our telephone surveys have shown there for years. And those men switch around a bit more than they might have otherwise indicated on the diary--for instance, while many Rush Limbaugh fans might just block out 12-3 on a diary, a PPM review may show a far different pattern.

There has been some grousing about PPM, some of it legitimate, some of it not. One thing PPM definitely does represent is change, and change isn't change if it doesn't break a few eggs on its way to an omelet. We should all be cheering passive measurement on, however, for one very important reason. Increasingly, advertisers and marketers don't care about how many 'points' they are buying, they want to buy results. Anything radio can do to drive the sales needle for our advertising clients, we can and must do in order to show the value and power of radio as a platform. Consider the diarykeeper who might block out 3 hours of listening to Rush, but actually switches around to WMGK, WMMR or WJJZ. It is entirely possible that someone who reports an uninterrupted block of listening to Rush never hears one of the show's key sponsors, because they actually spent almost as much time with another station. And when that happens, Rush's ratings (and rates) may go up, but their sponsors aren't getting value, because you can't drive traffic and sales if no one hears the spot. That is an unsustainable (and deadly) situation.

What we want to happen is for people who are reported to have heard a spot to have actually heard the spot...and visited the dealer, made the toll-free call, or logged on to make a purchase. That puts radio "on the same level playing field as top TV stations and the Philadelphia Inquirer," according to Greater Media's John Fullam, and that is truly in the best interest of your station, and radio as a platform. Media buyers may buy ratings, but they, like the people they are buying for, are really buying results. PPM offers a way to align those results with advertising expenditures like never before, even if we break a few eggs.

We are very proud to work with Greater Media in Philadelphia, and greatly admire their unwavering commitment to doing whatever it takes to understand--and master--the new landscape of PPM. The only "trick" to PPM is to make great radio, every day, and leave deeper footprints on and off the air. Embrace change, and it'll hug you back.