The New Nielsen

(By Mike McVay) Nielsen recently unveiled their upcoming plan to change from a 5-minute qualifier to a shorter 3-minute requirement for PPM stations to get credit in a quarter-hour. The current practice is that stations in PPM markets must have 5 minutes, which need not be continuous, inside of a quarter-hour to get credit for the entire period.

So how will this shift impact the measurement of audiences and advertising effectiveness in PPM markets?

Nielsen research shows that listeners are in and out during a quarter hour multiple times and their listening under 5 minutes is not measured against the total. 

The rating service notes that this change will improve the measurability of radio advertising and recapture lost impressions. Measurable ad impressions will increase, benefitting both broadcasters and advertisers. The move also recaptures listening currently lost around the quarter-hour break.

Today’s median uncredited listening length is 3 minutes long, thus the decision to drop from 5 minutes of required listening to 3 minutes inside a quarter-hour. Their point is that this move is consistent with current listening behavior. 

The results of the Nielsen study are very consistent with a preview shared this summer. Overall total AQH lift is in the mid-20s, and some of the demos are in the high-20s. Generally, bigger gains are seen in younger demos, formats, and markets. According to Nielsen, most of the lift is a result of the same panelist listening longer vs. new cume being identified. TSL grows more than cume with this shift. AQH grew by as much as 24-27%. Cume grew between 7-11%.

While format rankings remained stable, music formats showed a higher growth rate in AQH than spoken word formats.

Well-known consultant and radio advocate Fred Jacobs addressed Nielsen’s changes in a recent Jacobs Media blog. Among his observations, he questions that given this pending change in PPM markets, do we rethink stop-set placement? The answer, in my opinion, is yes.

Edison Research Co-Founder and President Larry Rosin and I have long debated airing two longer stop-sets versus four shorter breaks per/hour. Larry believes in shorter breaks, while I have supported longer breaks, based on Nielsen’s previous methodology – until now.

Given this change, four shorter breaks could be extremely beneficial. It’s also possible that giving more reasons for a listener to leave a station will deflate any possible increases created by Nielsen. Rosin says, “The audience belief is that a break should be the length of a song. But playing the PPM game where it’s clear the start of a break is maximum tune-out time means in theory that one long break per hour would probably be best, but no one has the nerve to try that.” 

These changes will also require revisiting song turnover by format, story repetition on spoken word (News, Talk, and Sports) stations, and frequency of airing promotional messages. This could lead to some interesting changes in how we look at audience turnover.

The art of the tease becomes even more important under this model, as I believe teasing ahead should ideally happen at the quarter hours.

The debate over content breaks comes down to whether shorter, more frequent interruptions are better than longer, less frequent ones. Personally, I lean toward the former, given the TikTok world we live in today. However, finding the right balance will take time and thorough analysis.

It remains unknown if the advertising agencies will accept the results of these changes as valid rating results or point to “Fuzzy Math” and discount the significant growth that’s expected in AQH. Many experienced ad buyers are skilled negotiators, often citing outliers, targeting off-demo audiences, or asking for rolling averages to secure lower rates. They’re negotiating. That’s what they do. 

Nielsen’s updated measurement is projected to roll out in Spring 2025.

Mike McVay is President of McVay Media and can be reached at [email protected]. Read Mike’s Radio Ink archives here.