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June Ratings

Too bad there was no analysis on one of the hottest topics on the board - the rocketing ratings of the Bull.

boombox4 said:
Why is KISW taking a 'hit', as the AllAccess analysis states? Is the competition that good?
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Listening habits change in the summer months. It's not just KISW that "took a hit". Some stations improved even though their numbers didn't. Stay tuned - David will be by soon to give a full report.
 
boombox4 said:
Why is KISW taking a 'hit', as the AllAccess analysis states? Is the competition that good?
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KISW has always had ups and downs. I've seen them swing 3 whole points in one direction or the other. A .8 dip is nothing.

CHR usually does well in the summer too. I'm guessing when school begins at the UW, KUOW's ratings will bounce up too (they seem to dip in the summer and bounce back in fall)

The side-by-side ratings patterns of KEXP and KVI are eerie.

I can't even watch the battle between KIRO-AM and the KJR twins anymore. It's just so bloody. iHeart should flip 1090 to something - ANYTHING but sports to save KJR-AM.

The revamped KUBE is inching back up (with the stupid sounding KPWK calls sent back to San Bernardino), KJR-FM and most especially, KZOK has really been making strides. But at the expense of KJAQ. And KBKS, which seems to be slipping badly. And KUBE took a big bite out of KHTP too.

And I still don't understand how KWPZ keeps popping up at the bottom when their signal is so spotty in Seattle.
 
Bongwater said:
KISW has always had ups and downs. I've seen them swing 3 whole points in one direction or the other. A .8 dip is nothing.

CHR usually does well in the summer too. I'm guessing when school begins at the UW, KUOW's ratings will bounce up too (they seem to dip in the summer and bounce back in fall)

The side-by-side ratings patterns of KEXP and KVI are eerie.

I can't even watch the battle between KIRO-AM and the KJR twins anymore. It's just so bloody. iHeart should flip 1090 to something - ANYTHING but sports to save KJR-AM.

The revamped KUBE is inching back up (with the stupid sounding KPWK calls sent back to San Bernardino), KJR-FM and most especially, KZOK has really been making strides. But at the expense of KJAQ. And KBKS, which seems to be slipping badly. And KUBE took a big bite out of KHTP too.

And I still don't understand how KWPZ keeps popping up at the bottom when their signal is so spotty in Seattle.
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But where is Warm and Star in all of this? Our heritage at work stations and one with a long running established am show and no mention of them? Where is The Sound 94.1 I don't hear anything out of them either and I thought they were going to be this big bad at work monster to gobble up the ratings with Delilah... how is that working out? Is she #1 or even top 3 in any demo?I think we can all agree KJR FM had a solid book as did KZOK. Willing to bet there are some happy folks over there. KEXP is it's own thing and it's will do what it does no matter of ratings.
 
Some of the pros on this board might know this. How does the PPM panel get divided between Seattle and the burbs? I assume Nielsen tries to balance this out by population/ demographics/ geographical averaging? And that this is spread between the four counties in roughly proportional numbers. I ask for two reasons...1) KUOW, and 2) KWPZ. In the case of KUOW, that station is SOOOOOO Seattle-centric that they would really be hurt by having a lot of PPMs in Bremerton or Tacoma. And overly helped if too many are represented in Seattle. In the case of Praise 106.5 in Lynden, seems like they have enough dedicated listeners down here that are willing to work hard to tune them in. So that says something I suppose. North facing hills or folks near Puget Sound.

Side note 1. I have pulled all the money I give over to KNKX from KUOW. 94.9 is sooooooo far up their own....If it happens north of 85th or south of the old Rainier brewery it didn't happen. They make substantial staff cuts weeks after a union vote. When HD radio finally achieves over 50% penetration in new car sales, they decide to drop all HD programming. They cut their local daily programming in half. And the begging really never stops. KNKX has been SO good in terms of honest gratitude to their subscribers, and seem truly apologetic during the pledge drives. KUOW was always giving me the message via mail and email that "there won't be public radio if you don't give to US!"

Side note 2- I bet we see a big drop in PPM during pledge drives. Anyone seen any correlation on this?
 
The New Chico said:
KNKX has been SO good in terms of honest gratitude to their subscribers, and seem truly apologetic during the pledge drives.
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It's interesting since we're so close to the battle over KPLU that emotions are still pretty high, and they don't want to alienate anyone who contributed during that initial campaign. But now they're in maintenance mode, so we'll see if they can keep contributions at a consistent level. Typically the community stations are closer to the public than the university stations because so much of their income is from the local members rather than the University.

The federal government keeps threatening to zero out funding to CPB, so that may become an issue in the fall. The station receives $500,000 from CPB. If that was to go away, it would be a lot to replace, and the main source would be the members. So get ready to hear about that.
 
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The New Chico said:
Some of the pros on this board might know this. How does the PPM panel get divided between Seattle and the burbs? I assume Nielsen tries to balance this out by population/ demographics/ geographical averaging? And that this is spread between the four counties in roughly proportional numbers.
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Cities are not the basis for Nielsen radio ratings, whether PPM or diary methodology based. Markets are defined as Metro Survey Areas, and are combinations of counties.* MSAs are named after the central or largest city in the market, just like the OMB and Bureau of the Census does to name their MSAs (Metropolitan Statistical Area). There are some single county radio MSAs, the largest being San Diego, which is a single county. Radio MSAs and Census MSAs often are the same, but can be different. Census MSAs are trade and commerce based for the most part, while radio MSAs are based on factors like commuting patterns and radio listening.

The Seattle MSA is made of six counties, Island, King, Kitsap, Pierce, Snohomish and Thurston. An almost perfect 50% of the MSA is in Seattle's home county, with Snohomish and Pierce each having +/- 20% and the remainder in the other 3.

Within a market, geography is a "stratification variable" meaning that it is one of the things that Nielsen balances (or tries to balance) with proportionality. If 20% of the Seattle MSA is in Pierce County, then 20% of the meters will be there. And they try to make each county as proportional as possible in the other areas, like age cells, gender, ethnicity, etc.

Within counties, Nielsen has Geozones, which are areas of each county that have been created via cluster / factor analysis as being statistically similar. Nielsen tries to balance the panel in the zones within each country as well as they can, but Geozones are not a guaranteed stratification variable... they are intended as guidance for recruitment and placement, and as "perfect world" goals.

* In a few cases, partial counties are used. Worcester County, MA, is an example where half the county is in the Boston MSA and the other half is in the Worcester, MA, MSA.
 
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TheBigA said:
It's interesting since we're so close to the battle over KPLU that emotions are still pretty high, and they don't want to alienate anyone who contributed during that initial campaign. But now they're in maintenance mode, so we'll see if they can keep contributions at a consistent level. Typically the community stations are closer to the public than the university stations because so much of their income is from the local members rather than the University.
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If you're community funded and driven more by individual donation than corporate underwriting, the two things that will earn you loyalty are transparency and respect for the audience. It sounds like KNKX is taking a smart approach.
 
Why is KUOW asking for donations? I thought they were "self-sustaining".

The CPB is funded through 2019. So about this time next year, it will be crunch time. On the current trajectory with the current makeup of Congress, the cuts are possible. But if Congress flips in November of this year, there might not be any cuts at all, as all budget matters have to go through Congress. We'll see.

And NPR is crazy popular. So I don't think it would be a politically wise move to cut the CPB regardless.
 
KUOW's "self sustaining" reference is an inside thing, that means they take no operating money from the UW, they generate their own through donations. There is an ongoing financial struggle at UW to make each department stand on its own rather being subsidized by other departments or the general fund. That being said I'm pretty sure some of the staff and management there (non union) take their paycheck directly from the University rather than from the donations.
 
Thanks for the info, David. BTW, the county that Seattle is in is called King County. It better be, or I have been cutting property tax checks to a scam!

Explains why Praise 106.5 gets a little data showing up every book, with Island and Snohomish counties being in the rating area. My guess is that they are the only Bellingham area station actually encoding for PPM. No particular reason for any station up there to encode, but my guess would be since sister KCMS does (and for good reason) they probably just use the same engineering and similar audio chains. One would guess that if the Bellingham and Olympia stations did encode, they would see similar fractional numbers in the Seattle book. Which would of course do them little good financially.
 
The New Chico said:
Thanks for the info, David. BTW, the county that Seattle is in is called King County. It better be, or I have been cutting property tax checks to a scam!
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My bad. I meant "Seattle's home county" as I had mentioned King County just previously! Nobody is stealing your checks!

Explains why Praise 106.5 gets a little data showing up every book, with Island and Snohomish counties being in the rating area. My guess is that they are the only Bellingham area station actually encoding for PPM. No particular reason for any station up there to encode, but my guess would be since sister KCMS does (and for good reason) they probably just use the same engineering and similar audio chains. One would guess that if the Bellingham and Olympia stations did encode, they would see similar fractional numbers in the Seattle book. Which would of course do them little good financially.
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Stations on the fringe of metros can get Nielsen encoders for a very small lease fee if they want to be included. Nielsen encourages their installation, as it raises the PUR percentage just a bit, which benefits radio overall.
 
TheBigA said:
Actually the last funding bill included 2020. But anything could happen. The payment hasn't been delivered. Congress might decide not to follow through on its appropriation.

https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/cpb-praises-congress-passing-of-appropriations-bill
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Thanks for the correction. But if funding suddenly stops, the uproar will be pretty loud. A lot of people listen to NPR. Alaska depends on it. I just don't think it's very wise to take a hatchet to NPR. At least not before a critical mid-term election. But alas, this is 2018 and every day, just when we thought we've finally seen everything....
 
DavidEduardo said:


My bad. I meant "Seattle's home county" as I had mentioned King County just previously! Nobody is stealing your checks!



Stations on the fringe of metros can get Nielsen encoders for a very small lease fee if they want to be included. Nielsen encourages their installation, as it raises the PUR percentage just a bit, which benefits radio overall.
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What surprises me is that KWPZ also subscribes in the Vancouver area, but doesn't seem to get many listeners up there. Fortunately, the target market is Bellingham, so a 1.1 in Vancouver isn't that bad, but I'm really surprised with no other competition, KWPZ doesn't do better up there.
 
bobdavcav said:
What surprises me is that KWPZ also subscribes in the Vancouver area, but doesn't seem to get many listeners up there. Fortunately, the target market is Bellingham, so a 1.1 in Vancouver isn't that bad, but I'm really surprised with no other competition, KWPZ doesn't do better up there.
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I don't believe KWPZ is subscribed to the Numeris Vancouver, BC, survey. IIRC, Numeris includes all stations that make the book, whether subscribed or not. Numeris is owned by the broadcasters of Canada themselves.

Since Numeris uses the Arbitron / Nielsen meters in their survey, I am assuming that the encoding is identical, so a Canadian meter will also detect encoded signals from the US.

There would not be much logic in subscribing to Numeris, as last I heard, advertising on a US station was not a deductible business expense in Canada.

KWPZ had a 2.0 share in Vancouver in the Spring Vancouver book.
 
notalent said:
KUOW's "self sustaining" reference is an inside thing, that means they take no operating money from the UW, they generate their own through donations. There is an ongoing financial struggle at UW to make each department stand on its own rather being subsidized by other departments or the general fund. That being said I'm pretty sure some of the staff and management there (non union) take their paycheck directly from the University rather than from the donations.
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Not completely true according to the last financial report, KUOW does get a small amount of money from the UW. They lump it in with CPB in the books, but there is a small amount coming from UW.
 
DavidEduardo said:


I don't believe KWPZ is subscribed to the Numeris Vancouver, BC, survey. IIRC, Numeris includes all stations that make the book, whether subscribed or not. Numeris is owned by the broadcasters of Canada themselves.

Since Numeris uses the Arbitron / Nielsen meters in their survey, I am assuming that the encoding is identical, so a Canadian meter will also detect encoded signals from the US.

There would not be much logic in subscribing to Numeris, as last I heard, advertising on a US station was not a deductible business expense in Canada.

KWPZ had a 2.0 share in Vancouver in the Spring Vancouver book.
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Oh that's interesting, kind of wish the U.S. ratings services did that. Even if KWPZ doesn't subscribe, I hear a number of adds for Canadian businesses on KWPZ. It's been a while since I looked at the Vancouver ratings, so your numbers are likely more accurate than mine.
 
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