Earlier this week Nielsen announced it would be making it more difficult for non-subscribing stations to get on a buy. If agencies or buyers do not subscribe to Respondent Level Data they will not see non-subscribers. We checked in with Brandi Jackson, Media Director for O’Brien et al Advertising in Virginia Beach to get her feedback on the upcoming changes.
Radio Ink: What are your thoughts on the upcoming Nielsen changes?
Brandi Jackson: Not at all happy about them from an agency perspective. We pay to get Nielsen ratings for particular markets, and thus expect them to be an accurate representation of the market. By not showing stations that don’t subscribe – unless I pay MORE for RLD data as well – then Nielsen ratings basically become almost useless.
Radio Ink: How will it impact how you buy radio?
Brandi Jackson: We are (still) BIG radio fans here at the agency; always have been. However, I can tell you that if we cannot see ratings for those who don’t subscribe, that will make us uneasy when buying a market – especially one that is new/unfamiliar to us. This lack of confidence could – in theory – cause us to choose to go with another form of media where we DO have a solid grasp on the market, and the best way to get our client’s message out to the correct target audience. Of course, if we know that radio is DEFINITELY the best way to promote a certain message, we would still do it. But it will take a LOT more work on our end to make sure we’re doing the right thing and using the best stations for our demo. However, if it’s a toss-up between several, this could very well sway a decision to use another medium in which we have more confidence in measuring what we are purchasing. It may also make us focus more on ROI (which we currently do now), but then we start measuring stations not on reach, but on performance. This may or may not help those who are subscribers or not.
Radio Ink: How do you think it will impact radio’s overall revenue in your market and in general?
Brandi Jackson: I don’t think it will have a HUGE impact on direct business, or those who are looking for strong promotions and awareness. Especially with the increase in social media that is always typically included in any radio campaign. We’ll be able to figure out who the top stations are by going to their social media pages, etc. We’ve done that quite often when going into a new market; it helps us make final decisions. I don’t think it will have a HUGE impact, but I DO think it will have SOME impact, as I’m already hearing that some agencies are telling stations that if they can’t “see” them, they can’t “buy” them. That will not be OUR mantra, but it does make our job harder.
Radio Ink: Don’t you think it was unfair for the stations not paying for the ratings to get the benefit of them while others were footing the full bill.
Brandi Jackson: Sure it’s unfair to the stations who have to foot the bill. Absolutely. However on the agency side, they just devalued their product for us. Why would we pay to subscribe to incomplete data?
Radio Ink: What are you hearing about this from your local radio reps?
Brandi Jackson: The ones who subscribe have brought it to my attention; no word from those who haven’t. Not a lot of discussion about it just yet, however. Just found out about it this week, so I may be late to the party.
We’ve bought well over 100+ radio markets on behalf of a client, PPM, diary and non-rated. So we DO have extensive experience with seeing rankers that may not have all stations included. It’s no fun and frustrating, but we HAVE been able to adjust. We can likely “guesstimate” ratings based on older data (for a limited amount of time of course) and – I think – will still be able to give our clients a fairly accurate picture of most markets we buy on the regular. It’s just going to take more effort and elbow grease on our end. OR – we just pay the extra money and get the RLD data, which – right now and in this climate – we aren’t quite ready to do.
I say this might be anti-trust in the making
So is Nielsen exempting stations owned by women and minorities because Nielsen executives are prejudiced and believe they are all poor and can’t afford it? Or because Nielsen executives are bigots who think women and minorities are all too stupid to know how to subscribe?
It must be one or the other, or a combination of both, because there is no legitimate reason for the exemptions. None.
If Nielsen thinks most women-owned and minority-owned stations can’t afford to subscribe, then fine. But such an exemption should be based on the same financial criteria for all stations regardless of who owns them.
Where’s Tom Birch when you need him ?
One of the reasons stations subscribe is to see how they rank against the other stations in the market. Is this going away too?
In articles I’ve read, I believe the non-profits and minority owned facilities will still show.
Reading IS FUNdamental.
Quite frankly, it borders on extortion of both non-subscribers and agencies by forcing stations to ‘pay to play’ and agencies to purchase the RLD. It will create an incomplete picture of a market and do long-term damage to everyone, including Nielsen, who will no longer be able to justify its pricing as fair or its ratings as ‘accurate’.
I see a number of negatives with this change. There are many stations in metro markets who’s performance will never be based on ratings. The formats of some of these stations may be unique or specialized (ethnic) so that they will never be the beneficiary of strong ratings within a market. Buying the Nielsen ratings doesn’t help at all. Yet, an advertiser may desire to reach a certain ethnic group and the present reporting indicates a station’s format.The identity of the format would not be available for countless stations and for potential advertisers who desire this format.
Nielsen stated that the reason for their decision to de-list non subscribers was to drive revenue( see comments from Brad Kelley). In other words force non subscribing stations to step up and pay.
In my over 45 years in the radio business I never fully grasped why agencies paid a pittance of what radio paid to Arbitron/Nielsen.
On top of radio footing over 90% of that markets Nielsen bill radio gives 15% of its revenue to those same agencies.
If Nielsen needs to drive more revenue then charge the agencies.
It’s about time they paid their fair share.
I’ll go one further. If a client puts itself up for review, every agency swears they can get buy radio (and TV, to be fair) cheaper, so they win the business and immediately begin bashing radio over the head with some made up CPP (“no, really, this is what the industry determines is the average CPP for blah blah blah”). We’ve been stupid enough to play along and cave to ridiculous CPPs while allowing these agencies to buy demographics rather than the psychographics they ought to be paying attention to. The result, many times, is that radio doesn’t work, the business is put up for review, a new agency says they can buy at a lower CPP, and, well… you get the rest. Ignore Nielsen and train your AEs to sell to local businesses. You’ll be a lot happier and a lot more successful.
Ratings really are for the benefit of the agencies. If the agency buys don’t bring enough dollars into the market, then the stations are not going to subscribe to Nielsen.
Right on. Our LPFM in san bernardino does pretty well in the area, but since you can’t see the numbers for our oldies format, you can’t make a good business decision. Was it the big corps who are using their power to make Nielsen change their business direction?
We get our numbers through https://rrconline.org/ .. for non-profits. So at least we know where our station stands.
Ahhh…you are not supposed to be selling advertising on an LPFM are you?