As stations see their listening levels rise substantially next year, it’s only natural they’ll want to charge advertisers higher rates for the larger reported audience deliveries. But simple supply and demand economics will continue to drive the market, so the ultimate revenue impact of Nielsen’s 3-minute listening threshold remains to be seen.
Nielsen clients on the buy side of the table are enthusiastic about the measurement change. “The broadcasters were very supportive for obvious reasons, but the agencies were also supportive because they want to make the case for audio and radio to be on the media plan,” a Nielsen spokesperson tells Inside Radio. “And because of the fact that their commercials tend to run around the quarter hour break, when this listening is more predisposed to being left on the cutting room floor.”
With so many music stations in PPM marks running two long stopsets an hour, straddled across the :15 and :45 points on the clock in what’s become known as the bowtie formation, stopsets are typically split by the quarter hour break. To be counted in a station’s Nielsen audience estimate, listening sessions historically must add up to at least five minutes within the quarter-hour. With commercials divided across the quarter hour break, ad buyers see the new crediting threshold “as an opportunity to count more of the audience to the commercial and get more robust information about listeners who were exposed to the ad for attribution and for the models,” the spokesperson says. “So, they view this as a positive that could benefit the way that they conduct their business.”How it impacts ad rates will ultimately be up to the market to decide. “The broadcasters should take credit for the audience, whatever form that means,” the spokesperson added. “They’ve got to make sure that they acknowledge it and have that conversation with the advertisers. Hopefully demand goes up as advertisers see that they’re actually getting a larger audience than they thought they were before.”
So Long, Bowtie?
In the early days of PPM, Arbitron’s John Snyder did a conference presentation on stopset placement that had programmers changing their station clocks practically overnight. Is radio ready to lose the bowtie? The more generous listening threshold certainly gives programmers the freedom to experiment with commercial placements. And with more listening occurring online, programmers at some radio groups have talked about not having all their CHR stations in stopsets at the same time so a listener could go to their second favorite station to hear a song. The three-minute threshold could free up radio to do shorter stopsets more frequently and even pull back on the number of commercials. If they’re able to claim more value for each commercial, they may not need to run as many. That could lead to a better listener experience, which also benefits advertisers.
Nielsen sees the new crediting rule as potentially leading to greater attribution for radio advertising. The thinking goes like this: 24% is currently counted as an unexposed listener. Yet some of those people that actually heard the ad went out and bought the advertised product. Today that’s counted against radio. “If we can better identify them as having heard the ad, then we can better attribute radio as the cause for them to make that purchase,” Nielsen’s spokesperson says. That’s a better attribution input for radio. Higher impressions and GRP levels can also benefit radio in the complex marketing mix models that determine how ad agencies and large brands allocate their media budgets.
While the ratings reset begins with the January 2025 survey, the sales impact may not be felt until broadcasters have a three-book average to work with, following the release of the March 2025 market reports. After all, January marks the first monthly report after the Christmas format disrupts radio listening up and down the dial. And January is a slow advertising month. “If the market can be fully running off of a three-month average with the higher rating at the same time when demand is increasing, that’s a pretty good formula,” the spokesperson says. “Hopefully it will be a positive tailwind for the industry that they need. But ultimately, it’s in the hands of the broadcasters to take advantage of it.”
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