Want to better understand why PPM listening levels are lower than diary levels?
Want to see why Arbitron only asks that panelists carry their meter eight hours a day while most people are awake twice as many hours?
Want to see why PPM may be costing radio million dollars in lost revenue?
If you really want to better understand PPM’s limitations and challenges, there's a new tool you must try.
Arbitron won’t let you experience what it’s like to be a PPM panelist. The company won't even let you carry a meter for a day or two.
The good news is that the new Quantified Self movement has created an opportunity for us all to feel what it is like to be a PPM panelist.
And you won’t like what you find out.
The Quantified Self is a movement that uses new technology in portable data acquisition to document a person’s daily activity.
One of the technologies is a new category of small fitness tracker toys devices that use an accelerometer to measure our movement throughout the day. The PPM uses a similar accelerometer to determine whether a PPM is in motion.
Devices like the Jawbone fitness tracker (right) are worn on the wrist like a bracelet, while others are small clip-on devices like the Fitbit Zip.
The Fitbit Zip is particularly interesting because in many ways it can serve as a valuable surrogate for the PPM meter.
Wearing a Fitbit Zip is just like a panelist carrying a PPM meter. And the Zip will tell you how many hours in a day a PPM meter would have been able to capture listening.
A few months ago I joined the Quantified Self moment and began wearing both a Jawbone Up and Fitbit Zip. Little did I know that I would soon develop great empathy for Arbitron’s panelists.
In the beginning I made a conscious effort to wear both the Jawbone Up and the Fitbit Zip continually.
The Jawbone slips easily onto the wrist and I quickly forgot about it. Were Arbitron’s PPM meter a bracelet, it would have captured all of my radio exposure.
The Fitbit was another matter.
First, it required some effort to securely clip it to my clothing. While it is considerably smaller than Arbitron’s PPM meter, I found it inconvenient.
When I changed clothes I had to make sure I also transferred the Fitbit Zip.
As time passed, I found myself increasingly forgetting the Fitbit, leaving it in a pocket, or forgetting it was clipped to yesterday’s pair of pants.
The Fitbit Zip was capturing less and less of my activity.
Were the Fitbit a PPM meter, it would have captured less and less of my exposure.
Mornings were particularly troublesome. I kept the Fitbit Zip on the night-stand, where a PPM docking station would possibly sit.
Clipping the Fitbit Zip to my clothes was generally the last thing I did as I got dressed, which means it rarely logged my morning activity.
The graph shown above illustrates this. The graph shows my activity in quarter-hours. While I get up around 7:00 A.M., I didn't get around to attaching the Fitbit to my clothes until nearly 8:00 A.M.
Now think about a PPM panelist.
A panelist is just like a person carrying a Fitbit Zip.
It takes a conscientious effort to make sure the meter is with him/her. It is likely that from time to time the panelist is going to forget to carry it.
Arbitron must know this. How else can we explain Arbitron’s rather low bar for counting a panelist?
A panelist is required to carry his/her meter no more than eight hours a day. Just eight hours (and even less for children).
The average adult is awake 16-17 hours a day, which means that a panelist is only required to carry the meter half the day to stay in Arbitron’s good graces.
How can a meter capture all radio exposure if it is sitting at home up to half the day?
One big difference between the diary and PPM is that listening begins later in the morning for PPM. It's like PPM panelists get up later than diary keepers.
Could it be that panelists don't bother to clip-on their pager meter until they are well into their morning?
In my case, the Fitbit missed about four quarter-hours of activity in the morning before I got fully dressed.
Coincidence?
A Fitbit Zip is $60. Even if you don’t want to join the Quantified Self movement, buy one to see what a PPM panelist goes through.
Then you’ll know where all those quarter-hours went, and why PPM may be costing radio millions of dollars.
Richard and Glenda, I'd like to respond to some of the questions and assumptions rasied in your column. And also point out this is the SECOND time I have posted this comment after you took down the first one.
First the article may lead readers to believe that PPM audience estimates are based on panelists who comply based ONLY on 8 hours of motion. The 8-hour requirement is actually the MINIMUM amount of motion per day in order to be counted in the ratings, and in reality, the average amount of motion time is far higher...it's more like 15 hours per day during the work week in the latest ratings book.
Also, the PPM is capturing exposure all the time even when it’s not in motion (e.g.
listening to a radio in the bedroom in the morning). And since our panelists are carrying their meter for an average of 15 hours a day, the vast majority of listening is being credited while the meter is moving.
Further, the specific motion requirement is NEVER communicated to our panelists. They are simply told that in order to be counted in the ratings and earn bonus rewards, they need to keep their meter with them throughout their waking day. Unlike the example cited of the Fitbit experience, our panel relations specialists stay in touch with participants throughout their time in the panel to remind them to carry the meter and help assure compliance.
In the mornings, the median undock time is around 7:30am on weekdays and 8:45am on the weekends. We've spent a lot of time looking at the morning drive ratings differences between the diary and PPM, and believe strongly that PPM compliance is not the reason for the differences. If you look at the total market cume during each hour of the morning, you’ll find that in the early-morning hours, PPM captures more audience than the diary up until around 6am. If the meter was somehow “missing” significant amounts of listening in the mornings, it would stand to reason that the audience sizes would be smaller across the board during all hours of the morning. That’s not the case.
I believe the differences between PPM and diary are due to a passive approach that measures exposure to audio rather than recall. The diary is more likely to reflect a respondent’s recall of what they usually do rather than passive capture of their exposure to radio. For example, a diary keeper may typically listen
starting at 7:30am in the morning and record that routine in their diary even
if they woke up late at 8am on a particular day.
Every measurement method has limitations including PPM. However, I don’t believe the evidence supports the conclusion that compliance and carry times account for the differences in estimates between the diary and PPM.
Jon Miller
Director of Programming Services
Arbitron Inc.
[email protected]
Posted by: Jon Miller | May 24, 2013 at 08:49 AM