Winning the future often means capturing the past. One hundred-fifty years hence an Italian economist’s discovery is the clue to many things, including radio audience composition. Simply expressed, all listeners aren’t created equally. You know that of course yet many tend to think of them that way.
Our most successful clients sometimes find up to 80% of their AQH comes from their P-1 listeners. And in some client markets 70% of the Diary entries come from about 30% of the zip codes; sometimes fewer! So how do mathematicians account for this phenomenon?
We can thank Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto who pointed out that 80% of the-then generated national economy was produced by 20% of Italy’s companies. Today, the Pareto Rule applies to almost everything including Nielsen metrics and your formats; ADG often refers to these implications. You can see this assuming you’re a Nielsen subscriber, though it applies to the makeup of any station’s weekly Cume, with or without ratings.
If you subscribe, using PD analytics we can show you how to find the geo hot-spots to isolate the heaviest zip codes producing 60-70 percent of your AQH. This allows you to geo-focus your book promotions and some of your on-air referencing. In one instance my colleague discovered that if you won three zip codes you could win the sweep, Persons 25-54 and 35-65.
Too many programmers have not been exposed to advanced strategies beyond playlists and music software; grossly unfair to them while leaving company money on the table. Even today, in conversations with a strong programmer through no fault of their own, we find some have never been exposed to advanced ratings analysis! Ask yourself the following:
ü Exactly what is your critical hyper-target? “12-Plus” even “25-54 Males” is too wide.
ü Can you define and understand the importance of “Cume Rating” and its implications?
ü Has someone shown you how to calculate “Turnover Ratio” (Cume-to-AQH)?
ü PPM has significantly crystallized the process of “Vertical” versus “Horizontal cycling.”
ü Some still believe “all weekday listening is more or less the same”. Working in San Diego not long ago, we clearly saw the variations between early week and late week! We also saw Greater San Diego had two morning drives! The conventional early morning “rush” and, what our researcher dubbed “executive Morning Drive” largely beginning at 8:00.
No matter how tedious it might seem and while advanced programmers are generally savvy, it helps to know the mechanics and the processes: all listeners aren’t equal!
