Nielsen To Adjust PPM Results For Headphone Listening, Outlier Panelists Starting In October

Adjustments

In a webinar for clients on TUESDAY afternoon (9/1), NIELSEN AUDIO offered details of its coming adjustments to PPM measurement of radio, including adjustments for headphone listening and "outlier" panelists.

The ratings service will make a "headphone adjustment" with the OCTOBER 2020 PPM monthly measurement, which it says will show a change in total radio listening of about 2-5%, with some stations using Total Line Reporting seeing an Average Quarter Hour boost but few standalone streams seeing an AQH increase. The adjustment involves using a "lift factor," based on surveying panelists on their listening habits, adjusted by demographic factors and applied to the calculation of quarter hour estimates of streaming at the market and station level.

According to NIELSEN's survey based on quarter hours, the lion's share -- 78.3% -- of listening is without headphones over-the-air, followed by streaming without headphones (12.3%), steaming with wireless headphones (4%), and streaming with wired headphones (3.5%). The headphone adjustment will be based on the survey results, with the ratio of over-the-air, non-headphone listening to headphone listening maintained. The result will be a global adjustment of 61% with variations based on demographic groups.

Explaining the methodology's effect in trial runs, NIELSEN's BILL ROSE noted that among 301 stations with a minimum of 100 AQH persons listening to streaming, the average AQH gain was 7%, with 179 total line reporting stations seeing a 5% lift and 122 standalone streams showing a 59% lift. Fourteen stations showed a gain of 0.1 in AQH rating. However, most stations did not change ranking with the adjustment, with 25% of stations with streaming seeing a one place change and 7% moving two to three places, but only 13% of non-streamers changing one place and none moving two to three places.

In addition, the OCTOBER data will be the first to have "outlier mitigation" applied, to try and reduce the impact of single outlier panelists on the numbers, a frequent concern of subscribing stations. NIELSEN does not expect the mitigation to change total radio listening figures and estimates that it will involve three to four cases per market per week. NIELSEN's KELLY DIXON said that the process will identify outliers by flagging listening that exceeds the 99.5th percentile and the household contributes 50% or more of its listening to that station. and will trim that panelist's quarter hours back to the next highest listener to that station from another household.

« see more Net News