A representative sample of people are selected in each market (or county for non-rated markets) and they register when and how much and to which station or stream they listen if they listen at all. The system is complex, as all good research is.Fair. Serious question tho, how exactly can they tell how many listeners a station actually has and exactly when many tune out? Ive always wondered that.
If you have a spare day or two: https://worldradiohistory.com/Archi...y/2022-Nielsen-Description-of-Methodology.pdf this booklet shows how ratings are done.
Very few advertisers buy nighttime radio. And in the last two decades, radio has lost about 60% of its revenue, so there is not enough money to be live when little is to be gained.As for the corporate greed thing, fine example of what i am talking about is WMMR being voice tracked at night to save money when they were always live 24/7. Thats when 90% of my listening is, at night. Ive been working night shift for years now. Its obvious to me that the die hard music freaks are the minority when it comes to radio, so perhaps thats why in conversation with people i talk to, most would tend to agree.
The fact is that you are what is called an "outlier" in research. Look it up. It means someone who has such different tastes that they can not be served by mass media.it always boggled my mind how the average music listener is okay with hearing only the hit music. But hey, to each their own.