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Diary methodology allowed programmers and managers to create all sorts of theories about how many commercials listeners could bear and what was the best way to package them. PPM forced us to become more scientific and, despite experiments with other schemes, the prevailing best practice for music stations is two breaks per hour. Yet when…

Presuming you can find people who still have a home phone, who are the people who still answer them? Back when Arbitron began its sample recruitment process on the phone, we felt compelled to follow suit and interrupt unsuspecting people at home when conducting callout, perceptuals and screening for auditorium tests. But, seriously, who still…

We’re heading back to the drawing board to design the questionnaire for the ninth NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study to field next month. We’re eager to see if Facebook’s renewed growth has maintained. We’re eager to see if Snapchat continues its trajectory and surpasses Twitter. We’re also eager to see if the connection between radio and…

Contesting is the #1 tactic that stations use to try to change the game – to build short-term ratings gains for important ratings periods. Through our Ratings Prospects Studies at NuVoodoo, we’ve asked tens of thousands of respondents about the desirability of different types of prizes, various methods of contest entry and, recently, about concerns…

We’ve shown before that likely ratings responders spend more time with radio and pay more attention to radio programming. Since most stations rely on music for the bulk of their programming, it would make sense that likely ratings responders also pay more attention to the music on radio stations. Yet, as we’ve talked about previously,…

Last week we showed some research numbers about contesting from our eighth NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study. The number receiving the most attention was our data showing that 49% of likely PPM respondents believe that most radio station contests are rigged.   In addition to the series of questions we use to model which respondents would…

We reserve some inventory in every NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study to ask about contesting and prizes. These questions often follow up on issues raised by clients in the course of conducting perceptual studies or marketing programs.   From prior studies, we know cash prizes as small as $100 generate significant interest among likely contest players.…

When we asked over 3500 respondents in the latest NuVoodoo Ratings Prospects Study which of eleven sources they use to help them discover new music and new artists, FM remains on top among partisans for five of eight broad radio formats where new music is an important part of the recipe – and FM is…