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Better TV numbers
Broadcast up 9% over diaries; cable doubles
By Kevin Downey
The first test results are in for Arbitron’s Portable People Meter, and they show slightly higher ratings for broadcast television and substantially higher ratings for cable than those recorded by the existing paper diary systems.
The PPM results, released yesterday for a test that began last December in Wilmington, Del., tracked a broadcast television rating that was 9 percent higher than what was recorded in the diaries during the test period.
Cable viewing more than doubled, from a small base, to a 2.1 average quarter-hour rating.
Results were in line with the expectations of media researchers, who are encouraged by Arbitron's decision to move the system into its second phase of testing.
"A lot of diary households try to recreate their viewing habits after the fact," explains Julie Morris, manager of strategic resources at Empower MediaMarketing.
"Inherently, you’re going to miss some viewing, so I was expecting television ratings to go up."
Judy Bahary, associate media research director at Starcom, says ratings from the PPM may have gone up because the system measures viewing outside the home. That’s something the diary system is not necessarily designed to do.
"It can also be attributed to the fact that it’s simply a different measurement from what we had before," she says. "This tends to be more precise."
The rating for radio remained largely unchanged, overall, with a 9.1 recorded by the PPM and a 9.0 by the diary system.
The most noticeable ratings differences occurred during various times of the day, particularly in the morning, when the PPM tracked a lower rating, and at night, when it tracked a higher rating than the diary.
"In radio, it makes sense to us that the morning drive period would be affected to some extent," says Bob Patchen, vice president of research standards and practices at Arbitron.
"The PPM is going to reflect actual listening, and the diary can potentially report what you might call more typical or habitual listening, which tends to be most common during that daypart."
While the results from the PPM test show listening and viewing trends that are somewhat different from the diary, the data is based on a relatively small test sample.
The first results were based on about 260 respondents who wore the pager-sized PPM.
The test began with 300 respondents but some of the PPMs were damaged, so a more durable design will be used in the next phase of testing.
The PPM test will expand to the entire Philadelphia market, with roughly 1,500 respondents.
"We will continue the analyses in collaboration with Nielsen Media Research, using the Wilmington panel," Marshall Snyder, president of worldwide PPM development at Arbitron, told reporters in a conference call yesterday.
"We will continue with preparations for a much larger PPM sample across the Philadelphia market. The sampling process begins later this year with deployment following early next year."
The findings of the PPM test are significant because it moves the media planning and buying industry closer to a system that measures all broadcast media with a limited amount of room for human error.
"Single-source is the Holy Grail for researchers because it’s getting us closer to multimedia reach," says Empower’s Morris. "This provides a cleaner and easier opportunity to get us there."
Conversely, the PPM results may finally mean the end to the paper diary systems currently used to measure radio audiences and local television demographics.
Researchers have long considered the diary an ineffective measurement tool in the increasingly fragmented media environment since it relies on a respondent’s memory.
"Anything that takes us away from paper diaries is a step in the right direction," says Rob Frydlewicz, vice president and research director at FCB New York. "And possibly being able to get a window into what people are viewing on TV outside of the home is a positive step."
In addition to comparing ratings, the Wilmington test was conducted to uncover any problems with the way respondents use the PPM.
Respondents in Wilmington wore the PPM for about 15 hours per day, which was fairly consistent for most age groups.
The test was also used to work out any technical problems among the participating broadcasters, which have to imbed an inaudible code into their signal that is picked up by the PPM.
All of the local Wilmington radio and broadcast TV stations asked to take part in the test are participating. Eighteen of 25 cable networks invited are now encoding for the test.
The PPM was designed by Arbitron and has been in development since 1992.
Nielsen, which uses a People Meter to measure national TV viewing and which recently rolled out its first local People Meter in Boston, is working with Arbitron on the PPM but has not yet committed to full participation.
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PORTABLE PEOPLE
METER VS. EXISTING METHODOLOGIES |
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Portable |
Existing |
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|
Media |
People Meter* |
Methodology |
% Change |
|
Radio |
9.1 |
9.0 |
1 |
|
Broadcast Television |
11.9 |
10.9 |
9 |
|
Cable Television |
2.1 |
1.0 |
110 |
|
COMBINED MEDIA |
23.1 |
20.9 |
11 |
| Source:
Arbitron, Portable People Meter Wilmington Market Trial (July 2001) * Data for media outlets participating in test ** AQH - Average quarter hour |
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PORTABLE
PEOPLE METER VS. EXISTING METHODOLOGY |
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Portable |
Existing |
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|
Time |
People Meter* |
Methodology |
% Change |
|
5:00am-10:00am |
10.2 |
11.7 |
-13 |
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10:00am-4:00pm |
14.2 |
15.1 |
-6 |
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4:00pm-8:00pm |
11.1 |
10.7 |
4 |
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8:00pm-Midnight |
5.3 |
4.6 |
15 |
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Midnight-5:00am |
3.4 |
1.2 |
183 |
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Source: Arbitron, Portable
People Meter Wilmington Market Trial (July 2001) |
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July 20, 2001 © 2001 Media Life
-Kevin Downey is a staff writer for Media Life.
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