With friends and colleagues and their families facing up to the devastation in parts of Southern California, it’s difficult to find a focus that doesn’t seem trivial or shallow. Perhaps it’s a reminder that stations are licensed to serve in the community interest. While many stations attract listeners primarily for a unique music mix, all…

There’ll be lots of pressure in 2025 to rely on voice tracking, networked shows, and AI voices as owners and managers look for ways to operate with the slim budgets they agreed to at the end of 2024. And there will be more ad campaigns relying on station promotions and on-location appearances as sales departments…

Thanks again to NuVoodoo EVP Marketing Strategy, Mike O’Connor, for his help with the massive lift of this week’s Moneyball for Radio.  In today’s fragmented media landscape, capturing and holding listener attention is critical – especially as Nielsen changes the rules of the game, soon shrinking the minimum time spent listening for a listening occasion…

Thanks again to NuVoodoo EVP Marketing Strategy, Mike O’Connor, for his help with the massive lift of this week’s Moneyball for Radio.  Welcome back! Last week in Part 1, we explored programming media consumption patterns among likely ratings respondents in Top 40 and Hot AC formats, examining key factors that drive listener engagement and retention.…

Thanks to NuVoodoo EVP Marketing Strategy, Mike O’Connor, for his help with the massive lift of this week’s Moneyball for Radio.  Fewer than one in five of the roughly 3,200 nationwide radio listeners recruited for NuVoodoo’s 24th Ratings Prospect Study (RPS) model as likely ratings respondents overall. But constituencies expressing a strong preference for either…

For the coming year in the radio business, you’ll again be asked to do more with less. If you’re a programmer or manager, you may be responsible for more stations in your market – or more stations outside your market. Research and marketing are always on the block as potential cuts. Yet we know that…

It’s Mike O’Connor, NuVoodoo EVP Marketing Strategy, at the keyboard for this week’s Moneyball for Radio.  Part 1: Decoding the “Podcast Heavy”: A Deep Dive into Their World In the ever-evolving world of audio, podcasts have carved out a significant space for themselves. But who are these avid listeners who spend hours each week immersed…

It’s Mike O’Connor, NuVoodoo EVP Marketing Strategy, at the keyboard for this week’s Moneyball for Radio.  NuVoodoo’s Ratings Prospect Study surveys thousands of radio format partisans, including ratings-friendly individuals who are modeled for likely participation in PPM or diary methodologies. This small constituency is referred to here as “RPS Yes” listeners. For this particular analysis,…

Talking to potential music research clients we regularly hear about their current research vendor giving them “rolled” samples. A “rolled” sample is one in which the latest sample, usually half the size of what a station would have preferred, is averaged with the previous sample. If a station gets new data every other week, the…

It’s not unprecedented, but it is new and different: Nielsen is planning to drop the requirement of five minutes of listening in a clock quarter hour for a station to earn credit for a quarter hour and make the new requirement just three minutes of listening. This IS a first for this lower threshold in…