radio ratings today!

The arbitron ratings come out today.



Whee!



KFOG should do ok.



Everybody is kind of wondering what will happen. Well we (radio people) always do but something has changed with the Arbitron system.



Arbitron tries to send out then get back diaries representing the age and ethnic profile of the market. But it doesn't work that way.



They have changed the way they are calculating the diaries in the SF market. You may not know that some groups of people return more diaries than others. 18 to 24 males don't return many. Older listeners do. So Arbitron weights some diaries more than others. They use ethnic and age information to determine how much a listeners diary counts to get an accurate demographic representation.



These aren't the numbers they use, but let's say a 19 year old Hispanic turns in a diary to Arbitron. It gets counted more, maybe 2x, than a 50 year old white woman. Why? Arbitron says they don't get a proper number of returns from the 19 year old Hispanic demographic, so what they get is weighted more for the total result. Why don't they send out enought diaries to the groups that under report to get an accurate account? Hey what's with the smart alec questions bub?! I dunno.



They have been doing this for some time, but for December they changed the amount some diaries are weighted. How will it shake out? We'll find out Tuesday am. One thing for sure, if the Arbitron Gods aren't good to you, it's their unfair rating methods that didn't reach the millions of listeners to the greatest station on the planet (yours). If Arbitron Gods are kind it is a result of your brilliant programming and outstanding talent.



BTW the numbers released by Arbitron are 12+ male and female. In other words "everybody". Under 12 and you don't count! But nobody who uses Arbitron uses these numbers. Radio and ad buyers buy demos. Some buy teens 12 to 18, some buy young adults, 18 to 24. Other stations like to have Adults (male and female) 25 to 54. So when some message boards discuss numbers that are 12+ it doesn't give you much of an idea of what's going on. It is like a picture of earth from space. No details. It is the breakdown where the information is, but Arbitron strictly controls that. That is why you never see those numbers in public.



12+ numbers also don't tell you how the dayparts break out. Does the the station have a huge am drive show, then fall off all day long? It happens.



Stations never care about 12+. As an example Live 105 used to (I don't work there so I don't know now) try for 18 to 24 males. The "old" Live 105 (of the late 80's to mid 90's was more 18 to 34 adults. I was in a staff meeting at Live 105 when we were told "we don't want female listeners". KFOG considers 25 to 54 adults our demo. That is a sh*tload of people and we seem do well in that group.



It can be bad if your numbers go up in the wrong demo. You might see a bump for a station 12+ but the bump is all young.



More than one PD in radio (but none I have worked for) has been scolded for having "too many teens" in the ratings.



At the other end...



Waaaaay back when KFOG was a easy listening station. Very soft elevator music for the 55+ demo. In the early 80's KFOG changed format to rock. I was at the Quake around this time and remember hearing stories that for many many ratings books the KFOG 12+ numbers were inflated because they still had lots of 55+ diaries being returned from "KFOG" listeners! They were actually tuned into the other easy listening station but didn't know. "KFOG" got the credit.



You question the accuracy of Arbitron? Hey Bub, No more smart alec questions!



You can say the station at the top of the 12+ pile is doing well, and those under a 1.0 share are not. But for the mass inbetween you really need more information about the demo breakdowns.



So KGO will win the 12+ again, but they won't get ads for the Marilyn Manson concerts, Fleetwood Mac maybe...



Tuesday could be a wild day for the ratings. Or not. I'll share here what I can.



background on radio ratings here