Nielsen Adjusts Ratings For Bluetooth Headphones, Upping Estimates About 4%

Headphones Help

NIELSEN hosted a webinar TUESDAY, OCT. 27th, in which they reported radio’s audience rose substantially this month, nearly recovering all of the losses it experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic to date. The largest factor in that recovery? NIELSEN counted bluetooth headphone listening that boosted radio’s audience by 4%.

MEDIAPOST reports, "NIELSEN called the headphone adjustment a one-time factor that would not be broken out in future months, but the inclusion fundamentally alters the bases for NIELSEN’s estimates for U.S. radio audiences, adding, "NIELSEN had been planning to make an adjustment for some time, because it’s radio audience measurement technology -- portable people meters, or 'PPMs' -- cannot measure listening done via a Bluetooth headphone, so it developed a method for factoring it based on surveys of former Nielsen PPM panelists who left NIELSEN’s panel."

NIELSEN reports the headphone adjustment showed OCTOBER was up 6% over SEPTEMBER, and about 2% came from “organic” listening, while 4%s came from the headphone adjustment.

During the webinar, MEDIAPOST noted, "NIELSEN executives indicated the headphone adjustment had a bigger impact on some demographics and markets more than others, noting that some big urban cities such as SAN JOSE, CA; WASHINGTON, DC; and AUSTIN, TX, had disproportionately bigger gains from the adjustment vs. markets like 'GREENSBORO and LAS VEGAS'."

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