Author Archive

Leigh Jacobs

Ratings Prospects Study XV: Preview of Coming Attractions

By Leigh Jacobs / January 13, 2020

NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study XV is out of the field. This new sample comprises nearly 4,000 persons, ages 14-64, and includes over 3200 interviews 14-54 to trend with our past studies. These new data from across all PPM markets will help stations program and promote effectively for 2020 and beyond: The latest Smart Speaker data.…

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Headphones vs Smart Speakers

By Leigh Jacobs / January 6, 2020

Here’s hoping that you got everything you wanted for the holidays. We’re also hoping that Smart Speakers outnumbered Bluetooth headphones as holiday gifts. We’ve shown plenty of data over the past few years about Smart Speaker owners using these new devices to listen to radio. They’re important devices for radio listening and can be helpful…

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Will Santa Be Bringing a Smart Speaker to Someone You Know?

By Leigh Jacobs / December 9, 2019

Last week it was reported that Triton Digital now says about a sixth of the listening to streams of commercial broadcasters in the U.S. is occurring on Smart Speakers – up from 11% a year ago. At the same time, Triton says total listening hours to commercial radio streams increased year over year. At least…

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Where’s Your Newest Radio?

By Leigh Jacobs / November 23, 2019

We last asked about purchases of technology devices in NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study Nine back in January of 2017. We saw that about as many people had bought a new radio (not installed in a car) in the prior year as had bought a new landline phone. We even wrote about a veteran PD we…

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Are Requests Still Potent?

By Leigh Jacobs / November 18, 2019

The great stations have always done it: included listeners as part of the fabric of their on-air presentation. Listener voices and implied listener presence (talking about listeners’ input and connection with stations) made radio interactive before folks used the word interactive. We at NuVoodoo have shown compelling data for reviving (or increasing) the use of…

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What Would You Ask Ratings Participants?

By Leigh Jacobs / November 11, 2019

Just after the holidays, we’ll begin fielding our next NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study and we’d like your help. Over the years, we’ve made it a habit to check in with clients on an informal basis as we’re readying our questionnaires to get input on the issues they’re interested in learning about. But, we’re trying something…

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The Sweetest and Most Important Sound

By Leigh Jacobs / November 4, 2019

A friend was complaining that the new owner of the station where he’s PD wants to add daily listener salutes. He’s concerned that they’ll sound “small market.” I recalled our NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study 11 from the winter of 2018 where we asked whether people have ever listened more to a radio station because they…

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Serving the Audience

By Leigh Jacobs / October 28, 2019

Last weekend I went into an upscale department store to exchange a gift. I found the item in the right size and looked for a salesperson to make the exchange. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, I realized that the register stations had been removed from the different areas of the menswear department. Then…

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If We Ask the Same Questions…

By Leigh Jacobs / October 21, 2019

We’ll get the same answers and make the same decisions we’ve always made. When more stations could afford to budget for annual perceptual studies, that every-year repetition allowed the stations to eliminate questions that didn’t yield actionable answers – and allowed additional explorations into new territory. Today, many of the studies that get done spend…

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Gerrymandering & Music Test Samples

By Leigh Jacobs / October 14, 2019

Wikipedia says, “Gerrymandering is the practice of setting boundaries of electoral districts to favor specific political interests within legislative bodies.” The term goes back to an 1812 redistricting map in Massachusetts set by Governor Elbridge Gerry. Political scientists talk about gerrymandering allowing candidates to choose voters, rather than voters being allowed to choose candidates. When…

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