Audience Research - The Future - The Questions

The usual pattern in most research studies really ends up with the same questions.   We start with their 'cume' behavior/recall and then narrow it to most listened to stations then we move on to the body of the questions .  We craft music blends for them to evaluate, ask about Morning shows, other personalities, maybe at work listening, contests, marketing efforts and maybe a few questions about the web site (have you been there).   Sometimes we are on a format search where the music mixes or other descriptive moments take more time in the questions.  There's always the pressure of keeping it under 25 minutes on the phone so we really don't have that much time.

Notice that the only area that is about their behavior is in the Cume and which stations they listen to the most.  An even there we may see the most marketed station win even though we look down their answers and they don't really know much about that station in the other parts of the study.  Where do they listen to radio the most, and what are those stations?  How passionate are they? Are they super radio users or just casual tuners?  Do they jump around as soon as the music sets end?

Also what kind of people are they?  Are they innovators that latch on to new concepts or products or are they laggards who are just figuring out innovations that happened years ago?  Or are they in that mass in the middle and where do they rank in that segment?

A few more questions about them before we dive into their perceived listening habits would really help us learn a lot more about what their actual behavior might be.  Right now we are mostly learning what they recall about our products and not a lot about how they use them.  Recall worked in the diary days - now it's about real behavior.  We have to find the secrets to making our products perform on a different plane

Many products and industries have used this type of research for years - dating back to the 60s and while it's gone through a number of evolutions it's still in use today.  Finding the key links in the sample or population and building products that use the keys to open doors to the bigger groups has been a big element for many industries.  

Now how do we communicate with the sample?  A lot has changed in the last few decades let's take a look in our next segment later in the week.  

Audience Research - The Future - The Sample

The land line phone and a random sample from the general population taken from the phone number listings has been the base for research since the late 50s.   Since radio really didn't get into ratings till the 60s and audience research in the 70s we started in the telephone era and for the most part haven't evolved much.

Now the world has obviously changed and the tides of radio research are also on the verge of changing.

First we have the land line telephone - which is quickly dying.   We are now at over 25% of the population who don't even have a land line and in some demos it's nearly 40%.  The number of Cell Phone converts grows every day and we can't call them on their cells.   Arbitron has begun the shift to try and integrate more and more cell phone households into the sample frame, but has our perceptual and music testing research?  It's not become a widespread practice, because it's hard to try and set up systems to reach cell phone only households for a survey done 1 or 2 times year.

2nd the audience has clearly changed the way they communicate.  Written snail mail and actually talking on a phone (cell or land line) are both evolving to new worlds.   With the internet we communicate in a whole new world from email to text messaging to social networks and many more evolutions to come at the speed of the internet where every 18 months we see innovations all over the place.  But, how do we communicate or research our audience?  While we have dabbled in on-line music testing, some station database questions, and maybe a few have actually done an on line perceptual test most of the time we still talking on the  phone and punching the responses into a CATI software program.

The new answers may well lie in managed panels.  Really a phone listing is a form of a managed panel of households that have phones.  In this case the panels could be built from a wide collection of on-line sources and serve as a sample base to draw from.   There are managed panels all over the place already that we could tap into and use that base to reach out on many platforms on line to gather the data.  We have started to use them for some online music testing and a few questions from our station databases, but our valid concern is just talking to our fans and not the whole market.

We also have to take a look at the new world of PPM.   This is really a managed panel of the market that is carrying around the meters for months and even years.  It's different from the old random draw of the sample that took place every week.   Here the sample is pulled with only a few replacements every week or month.  Instead of getting a snapshot of a few people's listening habits for a week we get a full length movie of them over 6 months, a year and maybe even 18 months.

Radio research used to rely on the random sample and in today's world trying to poll everyone doesn't yield enough specific information for us to work with.  More and more we need to stratify the sample and narrow the vision to those we have a chance to reach with our products when we do audience research for perceptual and music surveys.

There are panels out there, the key is grooming them so we can use them to research our product.  Many others have already started.  NASCAR, PPG, the auto companies, and many of the major retailers already work hard to grow panels that they can rely on to help them keep momentum with the audience on their products.   We need to start to find ways to make this work on much bigger scale than just our newsletter email list.

We also need to start asking new questions to learn more about behavior and not just about what they remember of our products.   We'll cover some thoughts there in a few days.   Feel free to chime in and contribute your thoughts on these topics.  Everyone's help will be needed.

Audience Research - The Future

Over the last 4-5 years doing audience research for music testing and perceptual studies has been an expense that has in many cases been deemed too expensive.   With the economy struggling, lots of competition from new media, and the need for every manager to cut expenses research seemed to fall off the table.   Clear Channel pretty much dismantled it's in house Critical Mass Media and left BA research on the table.  Other groups curtailed a lot of their work in studying the audience and many smaller owners also cut back.  

The reality here is that in many cases we've gone a long time guiding our ships in ever changing seas of new competition, audience evolution, and life style changes that no doubt have affected how the audience uses the product and their passion levels for it.  Now the economy is improving and perhaps we are getting ready to return to doing some audience research.

A lot has changed with a completely new measurement system in many markets.  The old sample system of using  mostly land line phones to gather the panel is suspect as so many people have turned off their land lines for cell phones.  Even Arbitron is using different systems to gather the sample to include non or limited land line participants in all markets.  We also have new opportunities using the internet for research that we have only done a few experiments with.

Much of our perceptual research in the past was built completely on recall behavior.  After all our whole game in the diary days was built on recall.  It really didn't matter if they really listened to our morning show every day, if they had high recall and impressions of the show we often got credit for listening.  If they could remember it to write it down - game over.  Making the impression still matters a lot, but we also need them to listen.

It's time to scrap the old questionnaires, the old auditorium tests, and the call out studies and come up with some new systems to find answers to new questions.  But, is anyone up for the experimentation it's going to take?  Over the next 10 days let's take a look at some opportunities to remodel our research here - I'll be bringing in some ideas and thoughts, but if you have any please feel free to contribute with your comments.  

First up - The Sample in just a few days.  

Thanks

Cell Phone Only Households

Arbitron has been working overtime to include more and more Cell Phone Only households into their reports in nearly every market.  Diary or PPM you will now see more of these growing number of households included.

They have integrated both the Telephone Based Sample base and a Address Based Sample into their overall sample pool.   The national average for Cell Phone Only households is 22.7% as of the 2009 research from the Center of Disease Control (they do 2 studies a year that have become the benchmark here).

Of course we'll see this number increase as the data is updated and if you look at various demos (like 18-34s) the number is much higher than 22.7%.

It's also different for individual markets and Arbitron has just released a cell phone only household map of the country for the Arbitron Markets.   Take a look (Arbitron Cell Phone Only Map).

Talent Coaching and Management

We've all heard that on-air talent that just seems to flow on the air.   They sound comfortable, prepared, spontaneous, plugged into the audience and entertaining.   So what's their secret and how can you spread this good virus to the rest of the staff?  After working with a lot of talent over the years I usually focus on these 4 steps:

1. Comfortable - We've all see the performer or comedian that just doesn't seem comfortable.  It's usually disturbing to watch and no matter how good the material they usually fall apart.   Of course there have been comedians that build their whole routine around being uncomfortable, but for the most part if you are not comfortable in the studio, behind the mic, with the audience, with their PD/Coach, with the station's image/style, and with themselves it doesn't work.   It's a lot to 'get comfortable with' but the real performers have that comfort level dialed in when the mic is open.   
2. Confident - Is it any mystery that the best talent is nearly always the ones with the biggest ego?  When you have that level of confidence your communication cuts through.  But to be confident you first have to be comfortable.   
3. Understands the Audience - Do they visualize and really know who is on the other side of the mic?   Do they also understand how the overall station communicates and images itself to the audience?  If they do then they can take full advantage of their comfort and confidence to cut through to the audience.   
4. Prep - Not only do you need to connect with the audience you also need to organize the prep so it integrates into the show.   The key here is making sure you know 'what is really important to the audience today' and also 'what is really important on the station today.'   They are often not the same thing - the big talk in the audience might be the new I Pad or a Movie while the big news at the station might be that Slash has a new CD out.   Find the answers to both and then you know how to prep.   

If your talent is hitting on these 4 cylinders I bet they have a passionate audience, high recall scores and they will likely out perform the other dayparts.    

Imaging

What we do between the songs and out of the spot breaks is one of the clear identifiers of our product.   Without it we are often just a limited collection of songs spinning around with perfect turnovers perhaps researched in the market or maybe drawn from a national safe list.

So often we just focus on our position - The Rock Station or Classic Rock for .... or Real Rock.  Then we let the creativity roll with lots of zaps, zings, and maybe a few clips or music hooks with the big voice.

In recent years with the advent of PPM and we got to see the quick trigger finger of the audience many stations went on an imaging diet scared that anything over 5 seconds was a tune out.  

We also often get pretty lofty with our claims and no doubt the BS indicator in the audience is at def con 5.

While the creativity and honesty is a big tactical issue in our imaging we also have to take a long look at the strategic side.  What are we really promoting - what are we really impressing on the audience?  What do we really want them to remember about our product and more importantly what actions do we want them to retain?  

No doubt you have a pretty long list of actions for them to increase their time spent with the station as well as the overall image you project to them.   Maybe you want to highlight your longer music sets, get them to listen more at night, listen more on the weekends, or keep your hot morning show in front of them and the competition.  Or maybe you want to use this time to build your position in the community or get more on the job listening.  

Do you have a real plan here or just a bunch of audio files spinning around in your studio system?  How much control do you really have over the plan?

Conventions

Just got back from an interesting Canadian Music Week convention.  The meetings were laced with lots of digital themes and concern over the next decade.   Hats off to Neil and the CMW team on another great series of meetings and showcases.

On the way we have an NAB in Las Vegas and I got an interesting offer from Jason Rouse from the NAB Travel Team.  He wanted to pass on the following offer to all McVay Media Rocks Blog readers and since it's 'free' well -----


There have been some rapid changes over the last few years that we as a digital broadcasting community face. The 2010 NAB Show is the place to discover new opportunities for all of us in the broadcaster world.

The NAB Show is coming up faster than you think – April 10-15 in Las Vegas! For a taste of what the 2010 NAB Show has to offer, check out what the Broadcast Management Conference and discover how to further monetize and manage your digital products in today’s dynamic marketplace: http://ow.ly/15xv1

Oh, and just because you are reading my blog, I’m giving out a code for FREE ACCESS to the Exhibit Hall at the show. This free Exhibits-Only pass includes (but is not limited to):

- Access to the Opening Keynote and State of the Industry Address
- Info Sessions
- Content Theater and Destination Broadband Theater

Visit http://ow.ly/13T8Q today to redeem or register at http://nabshow.com/register with the code A913 (and feel free to pass this along).

Don't forget to check out the official show website at http://www.nabshow.com for more information, news, and to register

A Decade Later

Just for FUN let's set the Peabody and Sherman Way Back Machine to 10 years ago in the world of Radio and Records:

1. Clear Channel had just purchased Jacor and was getting set to close on AMFM to own over 1,000 stations.  They also owned a large billboard network, TV stations and controlled the Concert/live performance world.  
2. CCU - stock approaches $100 a share. 
3. Larry Wilson still owns Citadel which he will sell in a year. 
4. Cumulus is preparing to expand it's smaller market holdings and is into it's 3rd year. 
5. XM satellite radio is planning to launch in 18 months. 
6. The record biz total revenue was over 38 billion for 1999 (it's around 10 billion now
7. Somewhere at Apple HQ they were drawing up the plans for the IPod which launched in Oct of 2001
8. Top artists on the CHR charts - Santana, Christina Aguilera, Lonestar, Faith Hill, Blink 182

When you take the Way Back Machine back to the Spring of 2000 it was filled with so much potential.  I remember sitting in an early Clear Channel - AMFM merger meeting and looking around the room in amazement at the talent, the power of 1000 stations in all but 2 or 3 markets in the top 100.  Having 2 or 3 research companies dedicated to the CC stations.  Owning the big talent like Rush, Rick Dees, Bob and Tom, John Boy/Billy, and more.  Owning a full service network with tons of programming resources.  Having 100s of great programmers all dedicated to making a winning company.  

It's too bad we can't just use the Way Back Machine and go back.  What would have happened if we'd tapped all that potential of a Radio industry ready to grow into a nationwide marketing monster, the ability to own enough stations to really build huge revenue with massive cash flow margins.  A record industry poised on a whole new delivery system that could eliminate the need to ship CDs or Tapes all over the world and make music truly portable and on demand.  Instead we all know the realities we face today.  Let's hope when we set the Way Back Machine for 2010 in 10 years the picture is much better than this trip back.   

In case you never saw Sherman and Peabody -