(By Mike McVay) This past weekend the clocks rolled backwards to Standard Time. Clocks have been on many minds of late – namely, changing programming clocks – all thanks to Nielsen’s plans to change the quarter-hour listening requirement in 2025.
Sometime next year, three minutes – not five – will equal fifteen minutes of listening in PPM markets. That alteration will lead to clock changes and warrants experimentation to determine what works best leveraging the potential to grow shares without altering the cume.
There’s been much discussion about the change and what it will mean in the way of increased shares because of this expected AQH growth. I wrote about it in my Radio Ink column last week and pondered the possibility of what it will mean for how music stations schedule the songs they play and what it means for spoken word stations.
The responses have been mixed. Some are adamant that the stop-sets should stay in either the “Bowtie” or “Hourglass” positions. The position of stop-sets straddling quarter hours has always allowed for the greatest part of the segment to be content. Although, I am suggesting experimentation to see what works best.
My opinion is somewhat fluid at this moment for music stations, which I will come back to, but I believe that spoken word stations should air four stop-sets hourly. The majority of spoken word stations are already at three or found breaks hourly. I would prefer four stop-sets that are no more than three minutes each. The challenge, of course, is that many spoken word stations have flexible spot loads and average 16 commercial minutes per hour.
Why four stop-sets per hour for spoken word? We know that providing an audience with instant gratification is key to the success of any station regardless of format. That means consistently repeating the big stories and providing multiple camera angles with that repetition. Spoken word listeners want to know a little bit about a lot of things. Having four commercial breaks allows for smoother content transitions, teasing across stop-sets to hold or bring back the audience, and it eliminates the awkwardness of getting into and out of live reads & endorsements.
The fluidity of my opinion regarding the PPM clocks for music stations is because we don’t know what we don’t know when it comes to having three individual minutes of listening versus the current policy of five. What it means for music stations is unknown. Nielsen studies show that AQH increased the most with music formats. Adults 25-54 across the five researched markets show Classic Hits/Oldies with the highest AQH numbers. Urban, CHR, Country, and AC rounding out the Top-5. Sports ranks 8th using the three-minute adjustment. News/Talk is last at 11th. Note that adding in Other shifts down Country, AC, Sports, and News/Talk.
What haunts me are the words of John Snyder, a longtime Nielsen team member, who in 2019 said, “Every time a station breaks, some part of the audience bolts.” He noted, “The more opportunities you give them to bolt, the more missed quarter hours you’re going to have.” That research-based statement slows me from suggesting music stations automatically go to four breaks per/hour. Several well-known media research companies have suggested that the audience prefers more short stop-sets than fewer long breaks.
However, Nielsen’s methodology for music stations rewards fewer breaks of longer duration.
Larry Rosin, Founder and President of Edison Research shared in last week’s column that, “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.”
The counter to that supposition is that it may negatively impact an advertiser’s interest in using radio. Our responsibility to advertisers would be challenged if that were to be an accepted tactic. I suspect that Larry is 100% right regarding a reluctance to try it.
In building or rebuilding your clock for the Nielsen three-minute change, be aware of the point of recovery for those who leave during a stop-set. If a listener does depart your station at the front of a stop-set, they’re generally gone for 10 minutes and return at that point, if they are a “station switcher.” Programming to that listener means delivering on the tease for spoken word shortly after the break. On music stations, it means playing one of your best songs as the second song after a break. That’s what a returning listener will hear upon reentry.
Teasing what’s next is a way to give listeners a reason to stay or return. When you tease, do so with an incentive to listen. Don’t expect the audience to alter their habits to stick around for something that’s 15 minutes away. No one changes their habits if the window identified is a long way off timewise. You have a better opportunity to hold a listener if the window is of short duration. Tease into a break and payoff not long after the stop-set. Make it interesting. Ask yourself if the content you’re teasing ahead for is worth waiting to hear.
The audience leaves a station on our cue. Don’t tip off the listener that commercials are coming. They’ll listen deeper into a break if you’re not using trite phrases like “We’ll be right back.” Be creative and look for unique ways to enter a commercial break. Be conscious that those who leave a station when the break begins do so quickly. Those that are less likely to change or turn off a station are generally less attentive.
Changing or staying with a station also depends on the device used to listen to a radio station. The car is a high-use radio location. It’s also where changing a station happens as easily as tapping a button. It’s more difficult when listening on an app or a smart speaker. Ironically, the devices that Nielsen has the toughest time measuring are those that conceivably have the best Time Spent Listening. Being able to more accurately capture listening online, as well as on apps, smart speakers, and on-demand would increase cume and time spent listening.
Prioritize your commercials so those that sound the most like music air first in a break. It’s not an easy task with some traffic scheduling systems, but some enable such ad placement. Dry voice ads run last in a break. If all things are equal and there are no music bed or jingle commercials in a break, air longest to shortest. Radio airs too many commercials. Therefore scheduling them to be less intrusive is one of those secret weapons that a competitor may overlook.
Daily ratings have more importance than weekly ratings. Because the week is made up of seven individual days, and four weeks lead to a monthly report, focus on winning individual days.
Look at your station and that of your competition. You’ll see similarities in which days your station performs well and those days that your primary competitor performs well. Win the day. Make your best day, with the biggest cume, the day that you take advantage of appointment listening. Likewise, take advantage of surge hours. Hours that show the biggest audience are the ones where you may alter the clock to present more content and fewer – or no – commercials.
Super-heavy users are more important than P1s. As programmers, I know we spend a lot of time focusing on P1s, but a P1 with a low number of quarter hours does little for your overall ratings. A P2 with more quarter hours has greater value to your overall ratings. Music stations need at least 60% of their audience to be made up of heavy users. This is true for most music formats, but especially true for AC-, Hot AC-, and Country-formatted stations.
There is no “set in stone” policy for increased performance. There is an expectation that Nielsen’s changes will increase AQH in PPM markets and that the available audience, albeit somewhat smaller than pre-pandemic listening levels, will be better represented by acknowledging that time spent listening is built by repeat listening.
The audience comes in and out repeatedly throughout an hour. Duration and Occasions drive TSL.
Mike McVay is President of McVay Media and can be reached at [email protected]. Read Mike’s Radio Ink archives here.
