What is The AM Radio Alliance?

 

 

 

We could be in the early stages of big Clear Channel AM stations battling with smaller mom and pop AM stations who are looking to serve their local communities when the sun goes down. It’s an issue the NAB does not take a position on because there are many stations on both sides of this issue.  Many Class A AM stations have been asking listeners to sign a petition to stop the FCC’s plan to allow other AM stations to maintain power at night.

A new organization called The AM Radio Alliance is made up of Alpha, Bonneville, CBS, Cox, Cumulus, Entercom, Family Stations, The Grand Ole Opry, Greater Media, Hearst, Hubbard, iHeart, NRG, Scripps, Townsquare, Tyler Media, and Tribune. The group of radio companies was organized to pressure the FCC to back away from its plan to allow small AM stations to maintain power at night as the Commission tries to revitalize the AM band.

The Alliance has submitted comments to the FCC asking the government agency to take the steps necessary to “truly” revitalize AM radio and avoid putting a plan in place that would damage Class A signals. The Commission has proposed allowing some AM stations to retain power at night, which Class A owners say will interfere with their signals, which have long been able to send their booming signals across many states.

The Alliance says the FCC made this decision without sufficient study and has filed these comments. The group says Class A AM stations have played invaluable roles providing the public with critical and often life-saving information in times of severe weather, natural and man-made disasters and other emergency and public safety events. The group says the FCC’s plan would make tens of millions of listeners subject to new reception-destroying interference on the AM band if the Class A stations were not protected.

Total TV, Video Consumption Grows Slightly In Q4 2015

by Wayne Friedman, March 25, 2016,                                             

Total TV-video consumption grew in the fourth quarter of 2015 by just under 1%. These results -- from Nielsen data and estimates from Brian Wieser, senior research analyst at Pivotal Research Group -- include live TV, time-shifted TV, desktop online video, DVD/Blu-Ray viewing, tablets, smartphones and multimedia/OTT devices.

Wieser says total video consumption was essentially flat year-over-year, slipping 0.2% for all of 2015. He also notes declines in total traditional TV viewing -- live TV plus time shifted viewing -- slowed in the period, dropping by just 1% across the whole U.S. TV population.
In addition, he says, time-shifted viewing is increasingly stable with regard to time-shifted time per person and the number of people who time-shift viewing. Looking at total traditional live plus time-shifted TV viewing this activity declined just 1.0% for the year.

Wieser says 33% of TV’s heaviest users represent 52% of consumption. Similarly 33% of the same group account for 53% of internet consumption activity. “This reflects the notion that heavy consumers of TV can be better characterized as heavy consumers of media,” Wieser says,

Looking specifically at streaming video, 14% of the population accounts for 94% of total streaming video consumption from PCs. Top 7% of video streaming users watch nearly 13 times as much traditional TV as they do streaming video -- which would be lower if mobile devices were included. 

Local Stations All Smiles For Political Advertisers - Fewer Grins For Other Marketers

A media critique by Wayne Friedman, Staff Writer Thursday, March 24, 2016 Automotive TV advertising has long been a bellwether TV advertising category. But when we get into the big political TV advertising seasons, automotive advertisers -- as well as others marketers -- can get pushed out of key commercial periods.   A Wall Street Journalreport says this year -- in key political markets -- only about half of automotive advertiser commercials are running, according to a Kantar Media analysis. Kantar points out this is a less-critical problem for retail, telecommunications and other major TV categories, where around 30% to 40% of inventory can be preempted. Not only can political advertisers bump out other advertisers’ media schedules, but they also can buy up that local TV inventory at the lowest possible rate. Still, despite the unavoidable inventory issues, the extra TV ad revenue makes a big, positive difference for TV stations. According to some surveys, anywhere from 20% to 30% of all available local TV station commercial inventory goes unsold. One advertising category TV stations won’t be cutting back on, according to Kanta data: their own on-air promotional time for local TV news programming and other shows. In future years, TV station make be able to smooth out these commercial inventory swings, as many look to the prospects of programmatic-like buying systems -- which would seem to encourage more ad sales directly from marketers. And the benefit for local TV stations: There is no difference between local and national ad inventory. All this could put TV stations into a different league in years to come. In any political season, they’d vote for that.

Forget MTV; Millennials Want Their YouTube (And Netflix And Social Media)

By Kipp Jarecke-Cheng, Op-Ed Contributor Friday, March 25, 2016

There’s an iconic scene in the 1997 cinematic masterpiece, “Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion,” where one of the titular characters had, like, a dating emergency, so she attempted to audition for “Singled Out,” MTV’s raucously puerile dating show—only to be flatly rejected. At age 28, Romy White was deemed too old and too uncool to be considered MTV material. “Try VH1,” she was told. That fictional film moment neatly encapsulated the hubris that MTV—the arbiter and purveyor of pop culture cool at the time—must have felt without realizing that a seismic shift was underway. In the penultimate years before the turn of the millennium, MTV may have still held cachet for young audiences, but its youthful exuberance was quickly starting to lose some of its luster, thanks to the incursion of the Interwebz. Fast-forward nearly 20 years into the new century, and MTV barely registers on the radar of most Millennials these days. While “I want my MTV!” was a pop culture battle cry for many Gen Xers, Generation Y has largely dismissed the original music television network as a source for music discovery or pop culture relevance. Founded in 1981, on the cusp of when the oldest Millennials were born, MTV is now starting to show its near-middle age and the cable network’s viewership (and cultural influence) has waned dramatically. To be fair, broadcast and cable networks, in general, have experienced viewership declines in recent years due to myriad factors but especially among younger audiences, many of whom have cut the cord and moved on to social channels and web-based entertainment options like YouTube, Spotify, and Netflix to get their music and video fixes. As points of comparison, adults ages 50 to 64 typically watch 39 hours and 21 minutes of traditional television per week, while Millennials between the ages of 25 and 34 watch 21 hours and 10 minutes of traditional television per week, according to Nielsen data. Moreover, teens between the ages of 12 and 17 watch a mere 17 hours of traditional television per week, a 30% contraction over a five-year period. It’s no wonder that networks like MTV, which once had a stranglehold on the pop culture zeitgeist, are now desperately trying to reinvent themselves for the digital age. A survey conducted by Defy Media on the video consumption habits of young people paints a grim picture for traditional television: according to the report, Gen Y’s top sources for video content are YouTube (85%), Netflix (66%) and Facebook (53%). While 67% of Millennials said they couldn’t live without YouTube, only 36% of them said they couldn’t live without TV. What appears to be driving the exodus of young viewers from standard television programming seems to be a combination of social media, content themes, and the relatability of YouTube personalities, among other factors. For many Millennials, web-based channels provide content that they want and that they can relate to, things that Millennials believe traditional television has been less successful at accomplishing. According to Defy Media, digital content reigns supreme for Millennials mostly because online personalities are more relatable and influential. A large driver for Gen Y’s online content consumption is the fact that 62% of Millennials reported that digital content “just makes them feel good about themselves,” compared to 40% of Millennials who reported that television made them feel the same way. It’s a curious conundrum for formerly hot networks like MTV, which for years held the pulse of what the young’uns cared about. For once influential networks that have since grown long in the tooth, the loss of a coveted viewer segment (and the marketing dollars that go with it) is one thing, but losing cultural relevance is something else altogether. Many Gen Xers may recall the conversations that we had with our parents back in ye olden days begging for cable television at home so that we could tune in to “120 Minutes” to catch a glimpse of the music and pop culture that would shape our young identities. Meanwhile, Millennials today don’t need (or want) a corporate pop culture machine to tell them what they want. Instead, Millennials are looking to each other and to YouTube personalities to set the tone of pop culture influence without the corporate spiel. If Romy White was looking to remedy her dating emergency today, chances are pretty good that she would bypass MTV altogether, set up her own YouTube channel, and find a date on her own terms without being judged as being too old or too uncool. That would shut up the A Group right away, amirite?

Content Marketing For TV? You Need To Work Harder

A media critique by Wayne Friedman, Staff Writer Monday, March 28, 2016 True “content marketing” may never come to the TV screen. But can you blame marketers for trying? In a fractionalized media environment, and with so much advertising avoidance, TV advertisers may be tempted to look for alternatives. But I contend: Content marketing for TV ain’t it. Not that I’ve seen many examples yet; there is just a lot of talk that it’s coming. Some of this is born out of initiatives like branded entertainment, which has been around in its current form for around 16 years or so, probably when CBS’ “Survivor” first launched in 2000. Branded entertainment is better than “content marketing” because it is more of a quick hit. Do your business and be done with it -- even when viewers' eyes roll, watching that extra-long shot of a Toyota Camry in a scripted TV drama and/or comedy. TV shows with heavy branded entertainment seem to have deepened their relationship with viewers. Still, do consumers appreciate this kind of sponsored content? That might be a leap. For sure, this kind of marketing-related TV content -- sponsored segments on NBC’s “The Voice” for example, or any number of reality TV shows on cable these days -- is here to stay. You can see a segment where a group of finalists for a singing reality show are driving around in a Ford Focus in preparation for a season-ending show. This is just part of a TV advertiser's overall tool box now. Content marketing for digital media -- stuff that looks like a print article but really isn’t? That’s the main form. Not all that crazy about this -- not from a consumer perspective or as a business marketing opportunity. What might be needed is a new type of content marketing. Sure, an in-depth article about alternatives remedies for headaches, aches and pains seems like a good story. But when learning it is sponsored by Aleve, Advil, or Tylenol? Nope, that doesn’t really cut it. Do better. While you need to be upfront with media consumers -- telling them what stuff is sponsored, and perhaps why -- you'd better figure out better ways to attach your precious brand name. Take your cue in part from WPP Group’s Sir Martin Sorrell, who said recently: “We are not in the advertising business anymore.”

CHR is Still Favorite Format Among Millennials.

What's the Top Performing Radio Format?

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Despite growing into a 25-54-audience powerhouse during the last few years, CHR has kept its primary focus aimed squarely on its longtime core 18-34-year-old target. No surprise then that no matter how you slice and dice radio’s Millennial audience, the format comes out on top.
CHR captures the largest share of listening among all three Millennial groupings in Nielsen’s new Total Audience Report, based on PPM data from fourth-quarter 2015.

CHR has a 12.3 share of Dependent Millennial Adults, a 13.5 share of Millennials On Their Own and a 12.3 with Millennials Starting a Family.

Still, Millennials in different life stages show preferences for different formats. Unlike diary ratings which measure recalled listening, Nielsen’s PPM service measures exposure to encoded media. And for Millennials living in someone else’s home, that includes exposure to listening by older adults, causing Dependent Millennial Adults to over-index for classic rock, classic hits and AC. At the same time, Dependent Adults under-index for sports, news/talk and regional Mexican, when compared with the total 18-34 population.

Millennials On Their Own are the least ethnically diverse 18-34-year-old group, and show a preference for mainstream formats such as hot AC and alternative, the new report shows. They’re also the least likely to be Spanish-language radio listeners. Millennials On Their Own listen to twice as much news/talk as the other two Millennial groups and also significantly over-index for sports stations (they also watch the most sports on TV).

Millennials Starting a Family include the highest percentage of Hispanic and Spanish-speaking listeners. In this group, regional Mexican has the third-highest share of listening time. Overall, 16% of listening among Millennials Starting a Family goes to Spanish-language formats—more than triple the amount of the On Their Own group.

Conversely, Millennials Starting a Family are less likely to tune to classic rock, urban AC, alternative and news/talk than the total 18-34 population.

After CHR, the 10 most popular formats among all Millennials are country (8.7), hot AC (7.8), urban contemporary (6.7), AC (6.6), rhythmic CHR (5.7), alternative (5.1), regional Mexican (4.8), classic rock (4.5) and sports (4.1).

Traditional TV Moving To Digital: Similar To Music Biz Disruption, Or Calmer Notes?

A media critique by Wayne Friedman, Staff Writer Friday, March 25, 2016 U.S. music revenues continue to be steady versus a year ago -- up 1% to $7.0 billion in 2015, all as its underlying ecosystem continues to shift. Should TV expect the same disruptions in years to come?   We speak, of course, of digital media transformation. The Recording Industry Association of America now says 34% of its revenue come from digital downloads, with 34.3% from streaming. Physical sales -- CDs, and vinyl -- are now at 28.8% share. CD sales -- which once comprised $9.4 billion in revenue in 2006 -- are now just at $1.5 billion. One silver lining in the physical arena: Vinyl sales, making somewhat of a comeback, are up 32%, to $416 million,their highest level since 1988. Comparisons to TV may be an apples to oranges situation -- because of the advertising component. But it should be noted, music revenues from on-demand streaming ad-supported services were up 31%, to $385.1 million. Overall the music business is further along than TV when it comes to the shift to digital. Total streaming revenues for music grew 29%, to $2.4 billion, with downloads at $2.3 billion. That means a total of $4.8 billion revenues -- nearly 70% of the music industry’s $7.0 billion  -- come from digital sources. TV’s yearly take from all advertising comes to around $70 billion, with total U.S. revenue from multichannel pay TV subscribers at more than $107 billion. But only a fraction of these businesses revenues comes from digital platforms. TV executives believe its business can transform to more than 50% of its revenues coming from digital platforms -- from subscriber fees or advertising dollars -- in the coming years. They point to growing money from new over-the-top (OTT) platforms, new data-based advanced advertising efforts, higher retransmission revenues for TV networks/stations, and a still-strong desire from consumers to spend on entertainment. This is the music to their ears.

Young TV Consumers May Be Delaying Traditional Pay TV Services

 

  by Wayne Friedman, Yesterday, 11:45 AM                                            

TV’s future long-term consumers, including Millennials, may be just delaying their purchase of full-price pay TV services in favor of broadband-only services -- not making everlasting decisions. Nielsen's Total Audience Report for the fourth quarter of 2015 says 28% of consumers ages 18-34 who live on their own are either broadband-only or broadcast-only homes, with 72% buying standard cable, satellite, or telco TV services. 

But this percentage sinks to 20% of those 18-34 consumers who are starting a family -- with 79% buying cable, satellite, or telco TV services. 
Nielsen says: “This implies that doing without cable and solely relying on Internet-streamed video may be a life stage choice rather than a permanent decision.”

Sixteen percent of those 18-34 consumers living on their own are broadband-only homes, and 6% of those consumers 18-34 who are starting a family. And Nielsen says those families with children -- of any age group -- tend to have multichannel pay TV services.

In the fourth quarter of 2015, Nielsen says those 18-34 spend two hours and 45 minutes a day watching live TV and one hour and 23 minutes for a total of 4:08 live TV viewing. 

This compares to all TV viewers who watched 4:27 of live TV viewing --  down from 4:31 in the fourth quarter of 2014.

U.S. Ad Market Forecast 2016: A Good Year, But Some Slowdowns For TV, Radio

by Wayne Friedman, 5 hours ago                                            

While the U.S. advertising market is poised for a good year due to digital media, political advertising, and the Rio Summer Olympics, some media segments appear to be slowing a bit. A new forecast from eMarketer says U.S. advertising spending will grow 5.1% this year to $192.02 billion, with TV spending rising 2.5% to $70.6 billion and digital media spending up 15.4% to $68.82 billion.

Previous eMarketer estimates for TV and radio projections were higher. Other forecasts project TV advertising spend will rise anywhere from 3.0% to 3.2% in 2016 over the year before.

 

Now the eMarketer study says traditional TV ad sales -- even with the Rio Olympics and political advertising -- will “have a challenging year ahead as a result of declining viewership and increased competition from video-on-demand (VOD) and digital streaming services.”

 

While TV still has the largest share of media spending -- 36.8% to digital media’s 35.8% -- this is projected to change next year with digital media surpassing TV. eMarketer says in 2017, total digital media spending will get to $77.37 billion; with TV advertising spending at $72.01 billion.

 

Total print advertising is projected to land at $26.74 billion this year -- down from $28.16 billion -- while radio will also slip to $14.12 billion from $14.27 billion and directories will fall to $4.25 billion from $4.56 billion.

 

Out-of-home media will continue to increase, rising $7.50 billion this year from $7.31 in 2015.

Millennial TV Watchers Average 4 Non-TV Activities

by Wayne Friedman, 6 hours ago                                            

TV consumers that don’t multitask while watching TV are now a tiny minority.

 

More than 90% of U.S. consumers are now multitasking while watching TV, according to a study from Deloitte, the audit, consulting, tax and advisory service.

 

Overall, 33% of all consumers typically browse the Web while watching TV. But less than 25% of all consumers’ multitasking activities are directly related to the program being watched.

 

Looking specifically at Millennial TV viewers -- 19-25 -- they engage in an average of four additional activities while watching TV, including general surfing the Web, using social media behavior and text messaging.

Growing streaming video services continue to make a big impact with more than half of all consumers, and three-quarters of millennials, watching movies and TV shows via streaming on at least a monthly basis. Millennials aged 26-32 who currently pay for streaming video have an average of three subscriptions.

 

The value of streaming services for subscribers has tripled in the last three years -- now at 61% from 17% in 2012.

 

With regard to new TV platforms and technologies, 35% of Baby Boomers ages 50 to 68 who binge watch do so once a week and average four episodes per sitting. Over half of U.S. consumers who binge watch choose television dramas.

 

The Deloitte study was produced by an independent research firm Nov. 5 to 19, 2015 from an online methodology among 2,205 U.S. consumers, with data weighted to the most recent U.S. census.

Myers: Hispanic Media To Increase 7.9% in 2016

March 22, 2016

 

 

Media Ecologist Jack Myers says marketers invested $5.7 billion in Hispanic media in 2015 which was down 6.6% from 2014. However, Myers says in 2016 spending will rebound nicely. The MyersBizNet Hispanic media report projects marketers will increase spending 7.9% in 2016, with average annual growth of 1.3% through 2020. Myers says Hispanic Radio will increase 8% in 2016 to $683 million, decline over 9% in 2017 and increase another 9% in 2018.

Gen Media Launches Hyper-Targeting Product.

The new product is called RetargetingPlus.com and Gen Media Partners says it can hyper-target ads to specific listeners by geographic area, demographics, income, interests, and more. You may have had something like this happen to you when you’re surfing the Web: You might be shopping for a product online, then notice that product follows you around to other websites reminding you to hit that buy button.

Gen Media Partners Vice President Scott Brody says, “With RetargetingPlus.com, radio can offer clients a digital component that reaches station website visitors — as a straight digital buy or as an extension to a radio schedule.” CEO Kevin Garrity adds, “This is opening doors directly to advertisers and new agencies, allowing us to introduce radio into their marketing budgets. It’s an opportunity for us to talk, not only to traditional broadcast agencies, but also to digital agencies, and to tap into digital budgets.

Democrats Value Radio More
According to Media Monitors, from March 11 to March 20, Bernie Sanders For President aired 7,936 spots and the National Nurses United Patient Protection added 995 spots bringing Sanders’ radio total to 8,931 spots. Hillary Clinton ran 4,536 spots, while her PAC Priorities USA Action bought 1,821 giving Clinton a total of 6,357 spots putting her at #2. Then it was the Republicans, who were very far behind.

Ted Cruz For President placed 226 spots on the radio, while his PAC Trusted Leadership aired 869 spots and Keep The Promise I added 99 spots bringing his grand total to 1,194 spots putting him at #3.
 Donald Trump For President, in at #4, bought 760 spots.
The Super PAC New Day For America placed 313 ads for John Kasich on the radio making him last among active candidates.

Radio's Digital Product is Ready

The radio industry has been eagerly and patiently waiting for a ratings system that can accurately measure over-the-air listening and online listening — data that needs to be easily presentable and understandable to advertisers. Nielsen has been testing its online audio ratings product for many months, and Thursday the company announced the service is ready to go. Radio stations will have their first taste of presentable data in May.

The Nielsen Digital Audio Ratings service has been collecting data on more than 2,500 station streams across the 48 PPM markets (Nielsen says diary markets will follow soon). The service will formalize a two-month pre-currency preview period with data from the February and March surveys, available in mid-March and mid-April, respectively. Beginning with the April 2016 survey data, released in mid-May, clients must license Nielsen Digital Audio Ratings to access data related to their own media properties and the data of other subscribers. The estimates will include both an average-quarter-hour and average-minute audience metric for digital streams.

To measure streams, Nielsen uses what’s called a proprietary software development kit (SDK), which is integrated into mobile apps and Web players. This method uses big data, a census-style measurement approach, and demographic information from third-party data providers, which is calibrated with Nielsen’s PPM panel.

Nielsen Audio Managing Director Brad Kelly said, “With the way people consume content in a continual state of change, it’s critical to capture all of the platforms where people are listening to audio, whether on the radio, computers, or smartphones. To achieve Total Audience for audio, we must provide a comprehensive view of listening behavior across all platforms, and what better way to start than with radio. Nielsen Digital Audio Ratings allows broadcasters, advertisers, and marketers to better understand the dynamics of a station’s over-the-air and online audiences.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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March Madness: Soft Early Ratings, Higher Ad Sales

by Wayne Friedman, Yesterday, 7:26 PM                                            

NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament has seen softer TV ratings through the initial days of the games, but higher overall national advertising revenue.

 

Through the first four days of the tournament, national TV advertisers spent $378.9 million -- 250 brands running 488 spots, according to iSpot.tv. This data includes CBS, TBS, TNT, truTV networks, and CBS Sports Network. 

 

Top advertisers so far this year are AT&T, with $21.9 million in national TV advertising followed by the NCAA at $15.9 million; Capital One with $12.0 million; Southwest Airlines at $11.2 million; and Buick with $10.9 million.

 

A year ago, $329.9 million was spent over the first four days of the tournament -- with some 220 brands running 395 spots on the same networks. In 2015, through the first weekend, AT&T spent $20.1 million, followed by GMC at $12.3 million; Buick with $10.6 million; the NCAA at 10.1 million; and Capital One with $9.97 million.

 

In the first two days of the 2016 tournament, for 32 games across four networks -- CBS, TNT, TBS and truTV -- total viewers are down 6% to a Nielsen average of 8.85 million viewers; with 18-49 viewers slipping 7% to 3.0. Young men ages 18-34 are down 18% to 3.52 average ratings.

Looking at specific networks, CBS posted a Nielsen live program-plus-same day rating of 4.52 million total viewers, down 2% from a year ago; with 18-49 viewers down 4% to 1.37 Nielsen rating. TNT is down 24% to 1.6 million and is off 28% in 18-49 viewers to a 0.60 rating.

 

On the flip side, TBS is up 18% to 1.75 million viewers and 24% higher in 18-49 viewers to a 0.68 rating. 

Another Entertainment Biz Disruption: Have We Read This Story Before?

A media critique by Wayne Friedman, Staff Writer Wednesday, March 23, 2016 Whenever possible, suck a few more dollars out of entertainment consumers -- preferably at high prices. This is the idea seemingly underlying The Screening Room. Using this  proposed new in-home movie service,  consumers would pay a nice $50 to see a brand-new theatrical movie at home, available the same day of its release in theaters. They get a weekend’s worth of time — a 48-hours window — to watch that future “Hunger Games” must-have film. And by the way, they also need to buy another clunky home set-top device, costing $150. All this is brought to you by none other than the Napster King himself: the original music and entertainment disrupter Sean Parker, co-founder of the music service. How can this be a successful enterprise? By luring studios in to make even more money than the $11 billion or so in U.S. box office revenues big studios pulled in 2015. What about the movie theater owners? They also get a cut. AMC Entertainment, now the largest movie theater chain in the U.S., has come on board, reportedly. It’s also been endorsed by some big-time movie producers and directors. But other theater owners -- as well as the industry group National Association of Theater Owners, and some other well-known movie directors --  think The Screening Room is bad news and would just accelerate movie revenue erosion. Perhaps Parker and company are targeting just the niche marketplace of certain entertainment consumers eager to be the first in line for new content. Still, you can see why theater owners might be nervous. For movie studios, there is strong temptation to grow another window of theatrical revenues. But it's never a sure thing. The rise of digital movie sales -- and other platforms like Netflix, and VOD -- contributed to erosion in other areas. Look at what's happening to the declining DVD business (rental and sell-through). Keep in mind that the music site Napster didn’t survive -- even with some 50 million regular users. But Sean Parker’s invention did have ripple effects in changing much of the music business. Among other things, it pushed artists to work with newer music digital platforms like Spotify and Pandora that wanted just single pieces of music. Album sales suffered; many artists also said they have suffered. Perhaps some well-known movie directors, producers and writers might want to keep some of this in mind when considering seismic business alterations.

Nielsen Rolls Out Digital

 

 

 

The radio industry has been eagerly  and patiently waiting for a ratings system that can accurately measure over-the-air listening and online listening -- and the data needs to be easily presentable and understandable to advertisers. Nielsen has been testing its online audio ratings product for many months, and today the company announced the service is ready to go.
 

The Nielsen Digital Audio Ratings service is already collecting data on more than 2,500 station streams across the 48 PPM markets (Nielsen says diary markets will follow soon). Measurement for custom-curated and on-demand audio, including podcasts, is currently in development.

 

The service will formalize a two-month pre-currency preview period covering data from the February and March 2016 surveys, available in mid-March and mid-April, respectively. Beginning with the April 2016 survey data, released in mid-May, clients must license Nielsen Digital Audio Ratings to access data related to their own media properties and the data of other subscribers. The estimates will include both an average quarter hour and average minute audience metric for digital streams.

 

To measure streams, Nielsen uses what's called a proprietary software development kit (SDK), which is integrated into mobile apps and Web players. This method uses big data, a census-style measurement approach, and demographic information from third-party data providers, which is calibrated with Nielsen's PPM panel.
 

Nielsen Audio Managing Director Brad Kelly said, "With the way people consume content in a continual state of change, it's critical to capture all of the platforms where people are listening to audio, whether on the radio, computers, or smartphones. To achieve Total Audience for audio, we must provide a comprehensive view of listening behavior across all platforms, and what better way to start than with radio. Nielsen Digital Audio Ratings allows broadcasters, advertisers, and marketers to better understand the dynamics of a station's over-the-air and online audiences." 

What About Digital Revenues For Trad TV Nets?

A media critique by Wayne Friedman, Staff Writer Thursday, March 17, 2016 Maybe it’s time we need to stop worrying about how much money traditional TV networks are getting from regular on-air commercials -- and more about what those networks will get from digital platforms.   CBS on Tuesday sketched out a plan so in five years -- with four million subscribers -- its ad-supported, digital over-the top-service CBS All Access could make $400 million a year. Let’s say the current $6 a month price is still in force by the time, which gives CBS $288 million a year in subscription fees. That means around $120 million a year or so will come from the digital advertising on CBS All Access. And that’s not the whole story. Rough estimates suggest that the entire yearly take of digital advertising revenue from prime-time shows on all digital platforms for the five English-language TV broadcast networks (Hulu, network-owned apps, etc.) comes to around $2 billion a year. What does each network pull in? Hard to tell. Perhaps looking at the share of traditional national TV ad dollars would give us a better idea.   In any event, that level of  revenue may not make much of a difference when looking at the entire $70 billion-plus TV advertising business. But it may stand out in the total digital video market, expected to hit $9.4 billion this year and $11.7 billion in 2017, according to eMarketer. Even in light of the complaints about insufficient digital TV measurement by major media measurement companies, this is good news: TV advertisers want premium digital video, and they know where to find it.   Premium original TV network programming running on digital platforms continues to mean tight commercial inventory supplies, with CPMs some three or four times higher than for comparable traditional TV inventory. There’s still plenty of worries about how much overall the digital ad business is taking away from traditional TV -- but what's really needed is determining what advertising share traditional TV is getting out of digital media. It’s always about the bigger picture.

U.S. Media Market Expands To Highest February Yet, Long-Tail Brands Outpace Top 10 Categories

• by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, Yesterday, 10:13 AM

After crashing in January, the U.S. media marketplace expanded in February, reaching the greatest volume ever for the month, according to the latest installment of the Ad Market Tracker.

The tracker, powered by Standard Media Index and published by MediaPost, measures total ad volume from major agency holding companies representing about 80% of U.S. ad volume. The index jumped 21 points to a 204 in February after plummeting to a 183 in January. The fall-off follows normal seasonal demand patterns on Madison Avenue.
 

On a year-over-year basis, the index rose 18 points over February 2015.
 

Much of the expansion appears to be coming from the long-tail of brand spending. While the top 10 product categories represent the lion’s share of spending, smaller categories expanded at a faster rate in February.
 

The top 10 categories rose 15 index points, while categories 11+ jumped 21 points in between January and February.

U.S. Ad Spend Up 10% In February, TV And Digital Climb

by Wayne Friedman, Yesterday, 11:06 AM                                                                       

Amid overall double-digit percentage U.S. advertising spending gains for February, TV’s syndication, national cable and and local cable advertising sales posted healthy improvements for the month -- less so for broadcast TV. Standard Media Index showed total TV advertising grew 5% in February versus the same period a year before -- this despite weak rating results for TV overall.

Syndication had the best gain during the month of any TV segment -- 15% higher; with national cable TV adding 11% and local cable advertising gaining 9%.

Broadcast network advertising and local TV broadcast posted overall weaker results -- national TV down 2% and spot TV advertising virtually flat, inching up 1%.
Breaking down national TV further, SMI says national cable benefited from strong near-term scatter market advertising buying -- soaring 21% in February over a year ago, while broadcast networks were down 2%.

Looking at the upfront piece of those national TV performances -- upfront deals made back in the summer of 2015 for the current 2015-2016 TV season -- cable TV was up 8%, while broadcast was down 2%.

According to media buying and selling executives, typically 75% of national broadcast networks and around 50% of national cable networks advertising comes from upfront advertising deals.
Total national TV upfront advertising was up 3%, with total national TV scatter advertising 11% higher.

Digital media grew 21% overall with strong activity in video (up 43%); social media (adding 49%); Internet radio (gaining 63%); and ad network/ad exchange business (28% higher).
Joining digital radio strong growth in the month was traditional radio, soaring 22% during the period. Out of home added 10%. Magazines and newspapers were on the losing end -- down 5% and 17%, respectively.

Overall, U.S. ad spend for February was up 10%.

SMI captures 80% of total national U.S. agency spend from the booking systems of five of the six global media holding groups, as well as leading independents. Group M is the one big media holding company that doesn’t participate in SMI’s data.

Harnessing The Power Of Social Influencers Is The Way Into Millennial Wallets

By Jeff Urban Friday, March 18, 2016

The millennial generation grew up with headphones on their ears and smartphones in their hands, and are often found with content from both devices jockeying for their attention at the same time. These digital natives became the largest living generation in 2015, according to the Pew Research Center, overtaking their parental Baby Boomers and are now the largest consumer segment in the country. The group with the shortest attention span has the most purchasing power and brands are seeking to quickly master the best way to earn their valuable dollars. When consuming sports, for example, millennials are more inclined to watch a video from their favorite YouTuber versus a professional athlete. When 13-17 year olds chose their favorite athlete to watch, the “My Favorite YouTuber” category ranked only behind LeBron James and Tom Brady as individuals who they like to follow. With social influencers establishing passionate audiences, it is essential for brands to identify influencers to communicate their messages to millennials. The most effective marketing to millennials takes place when social influencers and brands they trust to be authentic are communicating to them.  A study from Defy Media found that 62% of millennials ages 13-24 years old would try a product suggested by a YouTuber, versus 42% who would try a product based on a movie. In another study of millennial perception of celebrities, Variety asked respondents to assess 20 well-known personalities, such as Smosh, Katy Perry, Paul Walker and PewDiePie, “in terms of approachability, authenticity and other criteria.” Their findings were that the top five — and six of the top 10 — were YouTube stars. Social influencers are grabbing millennial’s attention, so everyone’s getting in on their influence. Philanthropic organizations are utilizing social influencers to help engage millennials in their causes. Boxed Water, for example, partnered with influencers like Jaime King, Megan DeAngelis and Aidan Alexander to spread the word about their campaign on Instagram with the National Forest Foundation called The Retree Project. For every photo posted with the hashtag #Retree, Boxed Water planted two trees. A month after it was launched, there were more than 3,000 Instagram photos with #Retree and in total, they planted 73,630 trees. These influencers may not be household names, but they’re moving millennials to action. Another successful example of a brand harnessing the power of social influencers is Madewell. To celebrate the anniversary of their classic tote bag, Madewell engaged five lifestyle influencers, including Stephanie Sterjovski and Bethany Marie, to promote the anniversary across multiple social platforms using the hashtag #TOTEWELL. They also ran a competition for users to submit their own #TOTEWELL moments that resulted in hundreds of submissions from tote bag consumers. Sometimes the most successful campaigns bridge the gap between mainstream celebrities and social influencers, like when trick shot stars Dude Perfect partnered with actor Paul Rudd in a Dizzy Bat Challenge to promote the upcoming “Ant-Man” movie last summer. This single video garnered more than 12 million views on YouTube. The best ways to communicate with millennials are evolving and brands need to continually innovate in order to reach them in an effective way. Social influencers are bridging the gap between traditional advertising and a recommendation from a close friend. Harnessing the power of social influencers is an excellent way to speak to millennials in an authentic way, especially if a brand or advertiser wants to reach a targeted, passionate fan base that will be more likely to engage with their product than through a mass campaign.

Radio Still Dominates The Automobile

      

      

 

 

Based on the 18-plus population surveyed in the 2016 Infinite Dial survey, 84% continue to use AM/FM radio as their primary source for audio in the car. Surprisingly, the CD player is next at 56%, followed by an MP3 Player or the listeners’ own digital music at 38%. Online radio comes in next at 21%, followed by satellite radio at 19%. And when consumers are asked how often they use an audio source, AM/FM dwarfs online radio 54% to 8%.

Sanders Takes Radio’s Top Spot

March 14, 2016                   

 

Tuesday is another big primary day for the candidates running for President as both Ohio and Florida will choose their delegates. Media Monitors is out with its latest report on which candidates are using radio the most in their battles to win the nomination. For the week of March 4 Bernie Sanders and his PAC aired 7,884 commercial to edge out Hillary Clinton and her PAV for a total of 7,506 ads. On the Republican side, Ted Cruz ran 1,170 spots, Marco Rubio 817 and Donald Trump 749.

Galaxy Phones Equipped With NextRadio

March 14, 2016

The Samsung Galaxy S7 & S7 Edge smartphones have just hit the market and they are fully equipped with NextRadio. These first two phones are the beginning of the FM Chip enabled mobile phones that will be available this year. NextRadio President Paul Brenner said, “We are excited that the number of Android phones with FM radio continues to accelerate rapidly. The launch of the new Galaxy phones is a perfect start to 2016, since these phones are getting rave reviews and will be a top seller to millions of users who can now listen to free radio on their phone.”