TORONTO – Astral Media Radio staged a live webcast on Wednesday afternoon to guide its advertisers and agencies through the first portable people meter (PPM) radio data from the Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton markets.
The first commercial release of this PPM data will be on December 10, 2009, which is also when the industry will begin buying and selling using PPM data as its new measurement currency in these markets.
The PPM is a pager-sized device that respondents carry with them to pick up inaudible, encoded signals buried within each radio station’s broadcast. That data is then uploaded to BBM each day when users place the units in their recharging docks.
Alicia Olson-Keating, the GM of research and marketing services for Astral Media Radio in English Canada, and analyst Mike Mohammed compared the PPM data versus the diary data from June 1 to August 30, 2009.
The results appeared to confirm that PPM is more reliable than the old paper diary system in many ways. For example, the diaries data, which relies on listeners’ memories, consistently showed longer time spent listening periods, with fewer episodes of listening reported. The PPM data for the same respondents reported more episodes and stations, but with shorter episodes of listening.
While both methods delivered similar averages for specific time periods, the PPM data provided minute-by-minute continuous input, providing more stable listening patterns, than the diaries which tracked listening in 15 minute increments.
The presentation also assessed data around significant events that occurred during the test time period. The Toronto stats looked at tuning around the time that news of pop star Michael Jackson’s death broke in June. A curve analysis chart showed tuning to the station which broke the news stayed higher than other stations in the market, unlike with a more localized event, such as August’s fatal collapse of the stage at the Big Valley Jamboree near Calgary, which lifted tuning for most stations in that market.
This type of analysis could also prove valuable in tracking listening patterns around a specific ad campaign to help determine how reach and frequency evolve from week to week.
