Vancouver Winter 09 S1 12+

[Howaboutthat]

Typical newspaper reporting....never looking any deeper (or doing actual work) than the 12+ share numbers!

I'm fine with that. Their angle is "What people are listening to", not "Who's in the best position to sell more ads".

Not quite. What you get with share, and I'm guessing you already know this, is where are they listening the longest. Cume shows how many listeners. How many 12 year olds are listening to CBC?

In any case, I'm looking forward to what the PPMs show come the fall.

[Aaron]

The story is about the CBC. Any demo other than 12+ is irrelevant in that case.

Is cume really more newsworthy than TSL?

[Howaboutthat]

I believe it is. All you have to do is look at 'NW, as has been documented here. And lets face it 98 % of people outside the business have no idea what 'share' is. To look at 12+, you'd think 'NW was the second most listened to station in Vancouver, and looking at the cume, for the same age group, you'd see its far from that. I'll even bet if you ask one of the newspaper reporters what the 12+ share stats they write about means, they wouldn't have a clue. But show them the cume numbers, which shows how many people are listening... that's something everyone can grab onto. I'd like to thank Jon for finding and posting them so folks here, can at least compare.

[jon]

I'll even bet if you ask one of the newspaper reporters what the 12+ share stats they write about means, they wouldn't have a clue. But show them the cume numbers, which shows how many people are listening... that's something everyone can grab onto.

True, but it is SHARE that advertisers (should) care about, as it tells them the probability that their ads will be heard by the average 12+, person in their demographic or person at a time of day, depending on which SHARE number they look at.

I frankly don't know the answer to this question: how do Radio Sales folks sell CUME to Advertisers?

[Howaboutthat]

Agreed Jon.. and that's the number the sales department should be pitching. For general consumption, its my opinion that folks want to know which stations are being listened to by the most people.... ie: the most popular.

[Aaron]

To look at 12+, you'd think 'NW was the second most listened to station in Vancouver, and looking at the cume, for the same age group, you'd see its far from that.

"most listened to" implies time spent listening if you ask me.

Flipping to the BEAT for 20 mins to see what's hot, shouldn't count the same as listening to the TEAM the rest of the time, for example. Or incidentally listening to CFOX with your son on the way to school while you listen to Rock 101 all day.

[jon]

Technically, I guess that is what people want to know: which station has the most listeners?

But, I think a more interesting question is: what station do people listen to most? SHARE doesn't tell us that, because it includes all stations people listen to most in any quarter hour.

In a perfect world, what I care about most is SHARE based on minutes per week that a person listened to each of the stations they listened to, without the "most time in a quarter hour" filtering process.

Why? Because I watched my own listening behaviour change when every 10 minute airborne traffic reports came (back?) to Edmonton. Stations that did that would never appear in my BBM diary, had I filled one out, but I was often listening every 10 minutes during the (close to an hour each way) Commute. The other 9 minutes was spent elsewhere.

From what I hear, people meters are going to stick to the silly quarter hour method. What a waste of great technology!

[Aaron]

But, I think a more interesting question is: what station do people listen to most? SHARE doesn't tell us that, because it includes all stations people listen to most in any quarter hour.

No, that's AQH. Share is the most telling.

[Howaboutthat]

But, I think a more interesting question is: what station do people listen to most? SHARE doesn't tell us that, because it includes all stations people listen to most in any quarter hour.

No, that's AQH. Share is the most telling.

Have you ever seen a newspaper report explain what share is...or even TV for that matter when they report it. All they says is so and so is #1.
I'm so glad I don't have to explain it to anyone anymore! I've often wondered too, and this could open another can of worms.... do stations sell 12+. or do they break it down for their own demo? If that's the case, how relevant is 12+ ? I've also always been curious as to how wide a swath the CBC numbers come from with all their repeaters.

[jon]

do stations sell 12+

Who to? I remember in the '60s when 250 watt Top 40 stations that ranked #17 in the market's overall ratings still called themselves #1 in their imaging. And to any advertiser dumb enough to believe them.

So of them went as far as to hire some agency to determine some niche where they actually were #1-rated. There were lots of great jokes about that back then. But the easy answer was always anyone within 500 feet of the transmitter, where the station was the only one you could hear across the entire AM broadcast band.

There were even documented reports of people with dental fillings that allowed them to pick up the station without the aid of a radio....

[yee-haw]

Hey, could you go over that one more time for me? I kinda got lost somewhere around the stuff about the 12 year olds

[Howaboutthat]

Hey c'mon..that's Grade 6! Three of your best years in school!

[Aaron]

.... do stations sell 12+. or do they break it down for their own demo? If that's the case, how relevant is 12+ ? I've also always been curious as to how wide a swath the CBC numbers come from with all their repeaters.

Basically never. But you have to reconcile the different goals of commercial station with that of the CBC. So there's no perfect measurement really.

Most ratings posted are from the Vancouver central book, so I can't imagine repeaters making a big difference.

[jon]

For the record, all ratings posted today are Central area only. Not Full Coverage area.

The reason: BBM only published (publicly, on their web site) the Central area numbers today for this rating period. Both CUME and SHARE.

For Vancouver, the Central area has a population of 2,012,872 (No, not just 12+ population)

[Stn Brk]

The Old Dog isn't losing listeners to CBC. It's losing them to the Lord Almighty.

If NW wants to pull together a focus group these days, it needs to hold a seance.

RIP The End is Nigh.