Radio Diaries - No More!

Finally, BBM has realized that diaries are costly to maintain, less reliable than when they they were introduced 20 years ago and experience huge sample problems

Starting this Fall, Montreal, will be the first market officially surveyed via the PPM (Personal People Meter).  The success of the TV PPM, launched in 2004, has made media buyers realize that radio surveys lack the accountability that we have encountered through the TV PPM.

The PPM is the size of a pager that fits in your pocket and can be carried with the panelist throughout the day.  It must be docked at night to download the information collected throughout the day.

Each TV program and radio station will be encoded with a unique audio code.  The PPM will record the codes on a minute by minute basis.  These panelists can be used for both TV and radio, however, at this time, BBM are keeping the panelists for TV and radio separate.  In the future, when the panelist does start to provide for both, buyers can complete reach/frequencies on total broadcast campaigns.

PPM will provide more stable data, less swings book over book and records "in Car"and "at Work" tuning and Online Streaming of radio stations.  The data can be viewed on a daily,weekly and survey basis.  The weekly ratings will help the radio stations adjust areas of concern on a consistent basis.  This is great news for radio buyers who have to currently deal with stations refusing to accept that their station did not perform well survey after survey. 

Montreal has been testing the PPM for a year. Preliminary results for radio look very similar to the TV initial results.  Prime tuning, which for radio is the Mo-Fr 6a-10a timeblock, is down and off prime evening and weekend tuning has increased.  Men and teens are tuning to radio stations much more than surveys state.  Men and teens don’t think a toonie is enough of an incentive to fill in a diary every day for 4 weeks, but give them an electronic gadget, and they are happy.

Vancouver and Calgary will start their survey in February 2009 and Toronto and Edmonton jump on board March 2009.  I am very much looking forward to the results and the capability of reviewing our buys on a weekly basis, as we do with TV.