Jon Miller & John Snyder

It's never a good thing to rest easy with the status quo as a media company - but even more so if you measure audio. Nielsen may be the consensus kingpin in audio measurement, but it's anything but complacent, what with improving PPM measurement through wearables or the recently announced launch of Diary Monthly Insight Reports, giving diary-market stations the same quality of granular data that PPM-market stations get. Here, VP/Audience Insights Jon Miller and Nielsen Audio SVP/Sales Director John Snyder discuss what's new, what's being improved and what's on the horizon in audio measurement.

What were you doing before joining Nielsen and what attracted you to this job?

JM: I've been in radio my whole career. I've been with Nielsen/Arbitron since 2004. At Arbitron, I was a radio trainer who worked with clients and data. When Arbitron was bought a couple years ago, I began to develop new tools for clients to give them the best insight we can provide.

JS: My story is quite similar to his; I've been here forever, since 1995 when it was Arbitron, and before that I worked in radio on Washington, D.C. and Vermont.

What have been the biggest challenges you and Nielsen have faced in servicing your clients?

JS: Top of mind is helping our clients understand their audience estimates and showing them how we build the methodology behind them.

JM: In addition to that, helping them understand all the other stuff in the media world, such as how TV use is changing and how other audio platforms are impacting the total audience. With that, you can grab insights from that data that would also be important for radio.

Considering all the new audio platforms, it is more of a challenge to get the most accurate information?

JS: It's the same challenge everyone in research faces. You still need to get a big enough sample size and you have to recruit the right sample to properly measure it. That's no different than the challenge facing any other research company. The conundrum hasn't changed for radio; groups always want a bigger sample, but they don't want to pay for it, which creates a situation where we do whatever's doable to get the best, most accurate measurement.,

When did the idea for Diary Monthly Insights Reports come up and how long have they been in the works?

JS: It came about after we got a positive reaction to the monthly PPM Insight Reports. We debuted these reports for PPM markets, with granular data on individual listeners, a couple of years ago. The PPM stations appreciated the additional insight these reports provided, and as soon as we received positive feedback, the question was raised about why we can't have that for diary markets. The impetus started there; the next logical step was to provide something that could be used for the dairy.

Is getting granular information more difficult when using a diary instead of a meter?

JM: Actually, it's not that much harder to create the reports. We always want to generate meaningful information. With the PPM, we get daily estimates from the panel. When we get individual diaries, we create a weekly survey, so we designed reports that are more granular to provide enough information, but generate consistent enough numbers to have meaning behind them. It's a little more challenging from that standpoint.

JS: Another point with diary reports: We already have services out there now -- Arbitrends and Xtrends - that extrapolate monthly books by weighting stations based on a three-month average. These new reports hone in on raw, unweighted listening, month by month, so people can very quickly see granular data on how much listening they're getting. By focusing on raw quarter-hours, it allows clients to see how listening patterns change month-to-month. This is specific data, reports that go on the back end of the sample. It's the same service same we offer PPM clients, month by month.

Did you roll this out in Beta and did you make any tweaks after doing it?

JM: Certainly, we got client feedback. We talked to key clients and researchers in the diary markets. We got a very positive reaction so we felt comfortable going forward.

JS: About the only other thing they wanted was more demos in the dayparts. They wanted more feedback from more demos and dayparts, so we added that after the initial trial run.

Is there any other information you can derive in these reports?

JS: Nothing that immediately jumps to mind. This is a pretty good cut. I'm not sure that without a change in methodology, we can get anything more in these reports. We can create new data by changing the control panel reports for PPM, but I'm not sure we can make major innovations using the same diaries.

You mention that there's a nominal charge for stations to get other stations' DMIRs. How much is the fee? Is it assessed monthly? Is it charged per station?

JS: It's a yearly fee of $1,000 per station per year. You're eligible to get all these reports as long as you're a subscriber to Nielsen tools. We launched the PPM insight reports at the end of 2016 with the same set-up for competing stations.

JM: In four-book diary markets, we'll have 12 reports a year, one every month. In two-book dairy markets, the reports will come out twice a year. Each report comes out before the book comes out, so stations can get a better look at the data.

How have smart speakers impacted the monitoring of station ratings?

JM: That hasn't really impacted our PPM market reports. Obviously, for the meter to pick up stations, those stations have got to be encoded, so the data depends on if an encoded feed is what's provided to play through the smart speaker. It doesn't make a difference where that stream is coming from; as long as it's encoded, the meter can register it. The smart speaker is just another platform, a different way to use radio.

JS: One of the things we'll look at over the next year or so is whether in-home listening is changing. We all agree that the majority of smart speakers are used in the home; it'll be interesting to see if smart speaker use moves the needle of in-home listening. We've built PPMs to monitor radio listening away from the home - in the car or at work ... things like that. With smart speakers, we will be more closely watching in-home radio listening.

Last year, there was significant concern about the PPM's ability to effectively monitor smartphone listening. Is Nielsen confident that it has a solution to those concerns?

JM: What we're doing is continuing to test different ways to measure any and all radio listening, including the use of wearables and also what happens on your phone. The process of evolving the meter and the measurement is continuous; we're always testing better ways to measure audio -- it's a 24/7 process of evolving the service.

Do you foresee an announcement on new meters or wearables by the end of the ear? Or is this something that's penciled in for 2019?

JM: We are continuing with our development efforts for the next form factor of PPM, which is a wearable device. We believe a wearable device will be easier for panelists and will lead to quality and representation benefits. Last year Nielsen delivered a working prototype and in 2018, version 1.0 will be ready for more extensive lab and field tests.

Nielsen has also made some acquisitions in the last few years, chief among them the Gracenote company, which gives us more technical opportunities to measure in-car listening across the board. Gracenote is featured in more than 100 million vehicles in the U.S. and our plan is to utilize them to provide more and better data.

Do you ever check out other audience research platforms, specifically Shazam, to look for ways to monitor listener engagement via the PPM or diaries?

JM: We look at anything that pertains to research measurement of audio exposure and listening, and we take into account what else is going on in the marketplace. But we're not set up to evaluate listener passion. We're pretty focused on the technology and methodology to measure what people are listening to, when and for how long.

It does sounds like you have enough on your plate in terms of creating new and better ways to measure listening.

JS: That's part of the fun of working for Nielsen. It's a huge company with a lot of different initiatives going on. We see our jobs, our role, is to try to connect the dots for our radio clients, using the latest technology to generate accurate data and new measurements that can we leverage.

What of the future - do you follow five-year plans or is the state-of-the-art in audience measurement so topical that you really have to concern yourself more with the short term?

JM: It's a bit of both. You're right in noting that the continuous changes can make any five-year plan look totally different in two years. Strategically, we remain focused on combining high-quality panels and surveys with big data and rich consumer insights to ensure we measure the total audience landscape and drive return and value for our clients. With that said, we have a road map that outlines key strategic investments, such as the wearable for PPM and continuous measurement in Diary markets. We are also enhancing the core measurement, for example by bringing in-vehicle out-of-home reporting to PPM markets and updating the sample frame in diary markets. Lastly, work is underway with planning systems, including updates to Nielsen's Media Impact tool to include Audio and also updates to various Marketing Mix Models. Those are things on the horizon; for now we put time and resources on things that will be happening in the near future. A five-year plan would be too far out.