Rush gone from WRKO

[Dave Doherty]

Hi, Garrett -

> ...with PPM measurement in the top markets, it's become clear that even
those demos aren't listening as religiously as was previously thought based
on diary reporting.

I'm not sure the case is that clear.

There has always been a concern about fanatic listeners getting on a diary
panel and over-reporting.  I think Arbitron did a pretty good job of
ferreting out the outliers, but modest over-reporting might well have
slipped through.

On the other hand, there seems to be pretty good evidence that PPM is
inconsistent at best when reporting talk formats. Duty cycle in the 1-3 kHz
range is what makes PPM work.  You have to have consistent energy in that
spectrum before the encoders can add the PPM signal. 

NPR, with its long pauses and word-swallowing hosts, is particularly
vulnerable; but human speech - even that of screaming talk show hosts -
simply does not have the duty cycle of pop music. (For the same reasons,
classical music and some forms of jazz are also particularly susceptible to
under-reporting.)

A little over-reporting on the old diaries and an apparently built-in
technological PPM bias against talk formats probably account for at least
some of the reported decline, not only in talk formats, but in general
listening.

-d



-----Original Message-----
From: Boston-Radio-Interest
[mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@lists.BostonRadio.org] On Behalf Of
Garrett Wollman
Sent: Wednesday, May 20, 2015 4:57 PM
To: Rob Landry
Cc: Boston Radio Group
Subject: Re: Rush gone from WRKO

<<On Wed, 20 May 2015 14:54:34 -0400 (EDT), Rob Landry
<011010001@interpring.com> said:


> I'm not sure of that. My impression is that most advertisers don't 
> particularly care what someone does on the air as long as it attracts 
> ears to their messages. The people in the "boycott Rush" movement are 
> not, as far as I can tell, in his target demographic, which is 
> working-class white men. He never did anything to alienate his target 
> audience or give them any reason not to patronize his sponsors.

You have to keep separate the two different kinds of advertisers:
general-audience advertisers, who are just looking for impressions, are the
ones who would be affected by any sort of boycott -- the Unilevers and
MolsonCoorses and Walmarts of the world.  Advertisers who don't target a
general audience anyway are the ones least likely to care, because they're
not losing any sales.  (They might even gain sales, in that target demo, by
continued association with a controversial host in the face of an organized
boycott.)  Which brings me to:

> I think the most likely explanation for Limbaugh's decline is that his 
> listeners are now too old. Younger men seem to prefer sports talk to 
> politics.

This, I think, is actually correct.  There simply are not enough advertisers
specifically interested in the older male demos who still listen to Rush --
and with PPM measurement in the top markets, it's become clear that even
those demos aren't listening as religiously as was previously thought based
on diary reporting.  Even older people have competing demands on their ears
and new ways to entertain themselves.

-GAWollman