[Fwd: Re: PPM vs Minorities]

[Roger Kirk]

Garrett Wollman wrote:

> The PPM doesn't measure listening, it measures exposure.
> The diary doesn't measure listening, it measures recall.
>   
Can I assume that Arbitron (doing due diligence) would have randomly 
selected participants to wear a PPM and fill out a diary?  To measure what 
correlation may exist betwixt exposure and recall?

> Listening is what advertisers and broadcasters actually care about,
> but it's nigh-impossible to measure under non-laboratory conditions.
> So they measure something else which they have reason to believe is
> positively correlated with listening.  The early results are fairly
> clear that people have more exposure to radio than they can recall,
> but it's not obvious to me how much of that additional exposure is
> background noise versus actual listening that went unrecorded.
>
> (There is a long history of problems with the diary method where
> survey participants would recall stations with strong imaging even
> when their actual listening was minimal.)
>   
I worked with a woman who never failed to remind us (on a daily basis) 
of how much she enjoyed listening every daya to her "favorite DJ" on 
WCOZ.  Regardless of the fact that said DJ had left the Boston Market 
some 6-12 months earlier.