[BC] Arbitron

[towers at mre.com]

PPM is all about sales. {{ALL}} about sales.

Since PPM replaces diaries in the ratings world, gone is listener RECALL.
Recall is oblivious to most minor TX/system outages or issues.  PPM isn't
forgiving in the least. "Listening" occurs at all times and tracking is
automatic. Your station's ratings are directly impacted by even the
slightest of outages if the cume is high or sales is cume driven.

If the station so chooses, it can track every quarter hour and sell
peaks/spikes in listening down to that minute amount. Thus, encoding 100%
is critical to the stations short as well as long term sales health.

MM

> Quoting towers at mre.com:
>
>> ...Loss of PPM encoding is the equivilent of going off the air.
>
>>> Someone said to me....if you stop encoding, you may as well turn the
>>> transmitter off.
>
> I have no experience with the above, know nothing about PPM, so the
> "going off the air" comment is a bit alien to me.
>
> On the surface, it appears that this is a case of someone going nuts
> over tracking listenership. Perhaps that is it in its entirety, or
> maybe there is more to it.
>
> I'm curious, and would like to know more.
>
> thanks,
>
> Dave Dunsmoor