Like a politician politicking for votes, any station should be able to pursuade and inform people that if they have a diary, “write down their station”.
That is known in the industry as "ratings distortion and bias" and one of the conditions for accreditation by the Media Ratings Council is control of attempts to bias survey results.
Media Rating Council (MRC) is a not-for-profit industry self-regulatory body, established in 1963 at the request of US Congress, that audits and accredits measurement services.
mediaratingcouncil.org
As Rusty said, stations sign contracts with Nielsen and commit to following a specific set of rules regarding on-air mentions of ratings and the use of the data they receive.
If Nielsen has the right to inform agencies of ratings that can be very inaccurate , the stations should have the right to try to politic their station.
You have no evidence or proof that ratings are "inaccurate". In fact, they are not. There is a margin of error in any study based on taking a sample and projecting it into the universe, and that is stated clearly in all Nielsen reports.
And the MRC, which was formed back in the early 60's after congressional investigations of ratings, protects advertisers. They do not allow ratings companies to tolerate ratings references on the air other than "Nielsen certified #1 in all of Ourtown!"
Nielsen does not run the radio industry. FCC does.
Neither do. Radio stations are run by their owners. The FCC regulates them. Just as you own your car (or your bank does until you finish paying) but the police regulate its use on the road and other government agencies regulate its emissions, tax liabilities, etc.
Own =/= Regulate
Those two have nothing to do with each other. I can tell you, being in the tv realm, that televisions electronic ratings are far more accurate than radios. They do not “weight” numbers based on who they “think” is listening.
And Nielsen does not weigh numbers significantly.
In the PPM markets, the panel should totally parallel the population on each of the stratification variables including age, gender, ethnicity, race, income, education, area of residence. Only tiny weighting should occur when there is panel turnover.
In the diary, which is a random probability sample and not a panel, during each rating period the recruiting for the remaining weeks is adjusted based on the qualified diaries that come back from the first weeks to try to have as true a sample as possible. However, if the end shows that Hispanic women 25-34 should be 16% of the total 25-34 sample but they only got 14% of the diaries from that group, each diary is weighted up by about 8%. Similarly, if they got 18% of diaries in that demo from Hispanic Women 25-34, every diary is proportionally weighted down.
There is no "who they think is listening". There is weighting to make the sample be a perfect mirror of the market.
I do not even see WNIA or WSAY in the Radioinsight rated stations.
Stations that don't show are likely not subscribed. Or, because they did not meet the minimum requirements for a 0.1 share. The two you mentioned, as Rusty stated, changed calls... some time ago... and are doing fine.
Saga Broadcasting dumped ratings a long time ago, and they are fine with it.
No, they dropped the Nielsen ratings in one or two markets where there was very little agency business. In the end, they signed a group deal. They never were without the ratings in most markets.
In markets without much agency business, ratings are not needed.
A great broadcast company will sell clients direct, without ratings, but only results.
That may work in some smaller markets. But in most of the larger markets most of your business... and most of the available business... comes from agencies. There are national, regional and even local agencies but if you are trying to be a reasonably good and high biller, you have to use ratings to sell to agencies.
One of my functions in market 14 (at the time) was for some years GSM for the #1 station which had a share that was double the #2 station for the two decades I was involved. 95% of our business came from the roughly 120 local ad agencies. There was no "good money" from direct accounts and we did not even have a local direct sales person as selling direct, under analysis, cost us money in lost agency business and wasted time.
Obviously you have never managed a major market station or been the sales manager for one.
