Re: Recent ratings thoughts....

["David W. Harris" <dwh@totalnetnh.net>]

BUMP MARTIN wrote:

> If I remember correct, there was a time that the FCC
> limited stations to 18 minutes...<snip>
> I've noticed this footnote for years at the bottom of rating books for
> a
> long time.  "Stations audience estimates adjusted for actual broadcast
>
> schedule."  Usually (if not always) associated with a daytimer.

I don't believe the FCC has ever had a direct say about the quantity of
commercial matter radio stations carry.  You're thinking of the National
Association of Broadcasters' Radio Code:  "The amount of time to be used
for advertising should not exceed 18 minutes within any clock hour.  The
Code Authority, however, for good cause may approve advertising
exceeding the above standard for special circumstances" (Section II-E,
paragraph 1).  This industry-determined standard was viewed as restraint
of trade by the U.S. Department of Justice and the NAB suspended the
code in the wake of an antitrust investigation in the early 1980s.

Now brace yourself for the following explanation from Arbitron:  "Only
one set of sign-on/sign-off times for a station is used in calculating
audience estimates for the market report.  Arbitron uses the
sign-on/sign-off times, provided by the station, depicting the month
closest to December and the shortest broadcast day within that month.
Audience estimates are adjusted for the station's actual broadcast
schedule.  When a station changes sign-on/sign-off times during an
Arbitron survey period, the times used in calculating audience estimates
are taken from those days of operation comprising the majority of
consecutive days of the survey period."  That's from Paragraph 36b(ii)
in the Arbitron Description of Methodology section in the front of the
Boston Summer 1989 book--that's what I've got at my fingertips and I
doubt much has changed on this front in the past 9 years.

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