What happened to Fish?

[AMRocks]

I always thought that 104.7 WFSH having such big ratings in Atlanta was a bit of a fluke. But they seemed to stay on top for many months, boosted from this past December's all Christmas format.

But all of a sudden, boom. They lost almost half their audience share (not cume) and it seems to be staying that way. Could it be their TSA dropped off big time?

It seems to have nothing to do with EMF coming to town or WVFJ. Neither has increased much in ratings.

I'd love to hear your theories.

 

[CTListener]

Blame Satan. <evil grin>

 

[RoddyFreeman]

I guess my question is just the opposite: What happened to make their ratings so high up until last month?

 

[LegalTender]

Rodney Ho summarizes:

"No changes of note in the top six. Strong month for the Bull, well ahead of Kicks. Super strong months for both sports stations. Praise had a solid September. Weak months for Power, Star, Hot, Radio 105.7. The new K-Love is going nowhere in its third month despite heavy billboard campaigning. Fish is now at less than half of its ratings two months ago which shows nuttiness of Nielsen surveying."

 

[CTListener]

Rodney Ho summarizes:

"Nuttiness of Nielsen surveying." Meaning what, exactly? That Nielsen's methodology is nuts? That its people in charge of distributing the PPMs are nuts? That the entire science of statistics is nuts?

 

[LegalTender]

"Nuttiness of Nielsen surveying." Meaning what, exactly? That Nielsen's methodology is nuts? That its people in charge of distributing the PPMs are nuts? That the entire science of statistics is nuts?

Guessing all components. PPM methodology warrants an appropriate level of scrutiny and skepticism.

 

[CTListener]

Guessing all components. PPM methodology warrants an appropriate level of scrutiny and skepticism.

But the radio industry, the ad agencies and their clients buy into it. Scrutiny and skepticism are therefore non-starters.

 

[RoddyFreeman]

But the radio industry, the ad agencies and their clients buy into it. Scrutiny and skepticism are therefore non-starters.

Several years ago, a family on the PPM panel was reporting a huge amount of hours listening to Star 94. When the family dropped out of the panel, Star's ratings decreased accordingly. So who knows?

IMHO, The Fish is where I would expect them to be. Their numbers are certainly not bad, just not through the stratosphere like they were earlier this year. In fact, they probably can breathe a sigh of relief that at least so far, K-Love is not eating their lunch.

 

[LegalTender]

But the radio industry, the ad agencies and their clients buy into it. Scrutiny and skepticism are therefore non-starters.

Just as "scrutiny and skepticism" were non-starters for Boeing clients.

Fish may have had a run as a ‘ratings outlier’—a family in the suburbs, where everyone in the household listens to a FM Christian station that suddenly ranks top-five in a demo. Young males and ethnic groups are called "hard to measure demos" for a reason. Overlooking client frustration seems unwise.

 

[deejaywestbrook]

Several years ago, a family on the PPM panel was reporting a huge amount of hours listening to Star 94. When the family dropped out of the panel, Star's ratings decreased accordingly. So who knows?

Wondering if that's what happened to Power this time around. Yikes! Haven't seen their ratings take a dive this low in years. Q100's music seems to have day-parted slightly more Hot-AC again. And Power sounds amazing these days. So, we better not lose our only solid CHR station.

 

[TheBigA]

But the radio industry, the ad agencies and their clients buy into it. Scrutiny and skepticism are therefore non-starters.

What choice do they have? I would imagine there were some very pointed conversations between station and Nielsen.

This is when one books a flight to BWI. It's a short drive from there. You schedule a conference and try to assess what accounted for the fluctuation.

Not unlike the conversation a hitter has when the umpire calls a ball in the dirt as a strike.

It's also why a graduate level course in statistics is often helpful in running a radio station.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

"Nuttiness of Nielsen surveying." Meaning what, exactly? That Nielsen's methodology is nuts? That its people in charge of distributing the PPMs are nuts? That the entire science of statistics is nuts?

I think it's more that The Fish's tumble is completely inexplicable from the limited published data. There's no obvious change in programming strategy to explain the fall, so it makes sense to question the data.

Back of the envelope math suggests that it would have taken a couple dozen panelists who were die-hard WFSH listeners (4+ hours a day) falling out of the panel, and being replaced with non-listeners to cause this much of a ratings fall. So we're not talking about a single household of WFSH listeners.

 

[DoctorRadio997]

It does NOT take several dozen panelists to create massive fluctuation in any PPM market. One household can do it (and has done it in the past). Folks at the Fish know what happened and how it happened. But I'm guessing they won't say much about it.

 

[AMRocks]

Guessing all components. PPM methodology warrants an appropriate level of scrutiny and skepticism.

...as did/does diary keeping. Many years ago, I went to Beltsville MD and reviewed the diaries in my market. Talk about insane! Some filled out in fat markers. Some not filled out by the person that was supposed to be filling it out. (A family of 4 people obviously had just one person fill out all the diaries. Every diary, no matter the age or sex of the person, had the exact same listening for 2 weeks.)

Personally, I think PPM BLOWS away diaries being filled out.

 

[jabba17]

...as did/does diary keeping. Many years ago, I went to Beltsville MD and reviewed the diaries in my market. Talk about insane! Some filled out in fat markers. Some not filled out by the person that was supposed to be filling it out. (A family of 4 people obviously had just one person fill out all the diaries. Every diary, no matter the age or sex of the person, had the exact same listening for 2 weeks.)

Personally, I think PPM BLOWS away diaries being filled out.

Wasn't it common, particularly with ethnic-targeted formats, for their listeners to "arrow down the diary" and report all-day listening to their favorite station? And when the PPMs came out, actual listenership dropped considerably leading to charges that the PPMs were "racist"?

To be fair, greater attention had to be paid to making sure that PPM distribution matched the demos of the market, but that didn't account for all of the discrepancy.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Wasn't it common, particularly with ethnic-targeted formats, for their listeners to "arrow down the diary" and report all-day listening to their favorite station? And when the PPMs came out, actual listenership dropped considerably leading to charges that the PPMs were "racist"?

Having viewed millions of diaries going back to Beltsville in 1970, I can't say that "arrowing" was common except for at work listening where occasionally we'd see 9 AM to 5 PM with a line from the start time to the end time. Less frequently, I'd see at-home listening in the same fashion. In both cases, there was no ethnic, gender or age difference between those that did this and diary keepers overall.

I never heard the PPM called racist, and I was in a position to have heard any such remark. What became obvious was that low-cume high-TSL stations suffered the largest declines in share because the PPM measured all those pauses in listening that supposedly "all day" listening stations actually encountered.

To be fair, greater attention had to be paid to making sure that PPM distribution matched the demos of the market, but that didn't account for all of the discrepancy.

The PPM uses a panel, where participants are selected to create a "perfect mirror" of the market (with minimal weighting) and can remain on the panel for up to two years. The diary methodology is a one week random probability sample, and weighting and selective recruiting (such as DST) are used to enhance hard-to-get-to-participate group participation.

In both methodologies individual groups (gender, ethnicity, age, income, geography) are weighted to mirror the universe, but since the Nielsen does not know who will return diaries from week to week, there is lots more weighting than in the PPM where they know on a daily basis the composition of the in-tab panelists.

 

[DavidEduardo]

...as did/does diary keeping. Many years ago, I went to Beltsville MD and reviewed the diaries in my market. Talk about insane! Some filled out in fat markers. Some not filled out by the person that was supposed to be filling it out. (A family of 4 people obviously had just one person fill out all the diaries. Every diary, no matter the age or sex of the person, had the exact same listening for 2 weeks.) .

It was not uncommon for one member of a household to fill in diaries. Generally, Arbitron would call back the home and verify that the listening was indeed recorded for each individual. In lower educational level homes, we can see that, generally, the matriarch would fill in the diaries.

This is the same in the PPM world: when several meters register identical listening, the household is contacted to make sure that someone is not carrying the meters for several people.

The diary method, though, has always been for a single week, and not two.

 

[CTListener]

It was not uncommon for one member of a household to fill in diaries. Generally, Arbitron would call back the home and verify that the listening was indeed recorded for each individual. In lower educational level homes, we can see that, generally, the matriarch would fill in the diaries.

This is the same in the PPM world: when several meters register identical listening, the household is contacted to make sure that someone is not carrying the meters for several people.

The diary method, though, has always been for a single week, and not two.

When Hartford was a diary market, I was chosen by Arbitron to keep one. Just my luck -- it happened to be a vacation week! So what I turned in was exactly one day of in-market radio stations and six days of Albany and Boston stations along with some XM (pre-merger) channels. Might have been the least useful diary anyone ever turned in, even though, as a radio geek, I made sure it was detailed and accurate. Never got asked again.

 

[DavidEduardo]

When Hartford was a diary market, I was chosen by Arbitron to keep one. Just my luck -- it happened to be a vacation week! So what I turned in was exactly one day of in-market radio stations and six days of Albany and Boston stations along with some XM (pre-merger) channels. Might have been the least useful diary anyone ever turned in, even though, as a radio geek, I made sure it was detailed and accurate. Never got asked again.

There are plenty of totally blank diaries from people who can't or don't listen. Pre-Internet, it was 5% to 6%. A study Arbitron did showed about 60% of those that did not listen back then were out of town, sick, on a long work schedule, etc.

On average, a person in a diary market will be recruited about once every 82 years.