20th Ratings Prospects Study Webinar This Week

The first of three live webinars to present data from the latest NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study is Tuesday, July 19 at 1 PM EDT – with additional sessions scheduled for Monday, July 25, and Wednesday, August 3. Reserve your spot at nuvoodoo.com/webinars. It’s our 20^th twice-annual study focused on ratings-likely respondents across the PPM markets.

With Nielsen on track to replace as many as two-thirds of the legacy PPM meters with their new wearable meters by the end of 2022, we wanted to ensure we’d have enough respondents to break out subgroups of likely ratings respondents who predict they’d carry the new wearable meter in each of its three forms: clip mount, pendant, and wristband. So, we went big on the sample for this summer RPS (Ratings Prospects Study): 5,495 respondents.

The three wearable groups that emerge – wristband, clip mount, and pendant – show only minor time spent listening variances that should cause no change at the market level, but could be enough to shift ratings for a station. We can only hope that those who opt for the pendant mount will wear their meter outside their clothing to collect all their encoded exposure.

Overall, the change from the one-size-fits-all 1980’s pager to smaller devices with options for respondents – and especially the wristband mounts – is a good change for the radio business. Across our sample of nearly fifty-five hundred already research-friendly respondents, only one in five models through as a likely ratings participant. They are a rare and important sub-group of research respondents.

And as my partner in the webinars, PJ Kling, NuVoodoo Marketing VP, noted: “34% of respondents in our sample don’t listen to the radio enough to be counted by Nielsen. Yet, nearly 40% of RPS Yes Ratings Likelies spend an hour a day or more with radio EVERY DAY. That’s a massive divergence! It shows how the fate of every broadcast executive in the U.S. is in the hands of a tiny fraction of the overall population.

Our sample of 14-54’s from all the PPM markets includes portions of three generations: most Gen Z’s (14-25’s in the sample), all Millennials (ages 26-41), and most of Gen X (42-54 in the sample). There are sharp differences across the generations that will be felt by radio programmers and managers. And there’s a lot to report on:

• We’re updating our understanding of what motivates potential PPM participants as they confront Nielsen’s new smartphone app.
• We’re taking a fresh look at the audio landscape as lives resume an updated version of normal and spend more time behind the wheel and out of their homes.
• With so many social media apps in the news, we’re diving into daily and chronic usage for the major platforms (how bad is the news for Facebook, Insta, and Twitter?).
• Marketing dollars are precious, so we’ll show the most-effective advertising media for different format constituencies.
• Contest dollars are also precious, so we’re back with recommendations on contest prizes and mechanisms.
• Who are the folks who really connect with stations versus those who think there’s nothing special on the radio?
• Which listeners are most interested in new music and how many are relying on radio to connect with new songs.
• The biggest drivers of tuneout beyond commercials.

July is a peak summer vacation month, so in addition to this week’s webinar we have live sessions scheduled for Monday, July 25, and Wednesday, August 3. Save your spot now at nuvoodoo.com/webinars.