RE: Burlington's new NAC...a great format

[Garrett Wollman <wollman>]

<<On Sun, 9 Apr 2000 14:15:16 -0400, "Paul Hopfgarten" <hopfgapr@sprynet.com> said:

> Using that philosophy (using Gtr Boston Stations as an example)
> AAA and Talk listeners must ALSO be poor diary keepers!<g>

I strongly suspect that the diary distribution, even in large markets,
is insufficiently broad to give meaningful results outside of the
top-3 or -5 in the major demos.  Just look at how sensitive the
results are to diary distribution in markets with significant
geographical barriers, where sometimes even the number-one station can
vary wildly from one book to the next depending on where diaries were
sent.

I also strongly suspect that professional households, generally, are
much less likely to actually participate in surveys -- radio ratings in
particular, because of the high inconvenience factor and insignificant
remuneration.  (The same is true of minority households, but for
different reasons.)

Both of these problems could be fixed if the Infinity and Clear
Channel were willing to spend more money on accurate ratings.  Of
course, these are the precise companies whose interests are most
directly aligned with the status quo.  (That's because they mostly
don't run the niche and ethnic formats which are undersampled by Arb.)

-GAWollman