It’s easy to understand why Bob Neil, Cox Radio’s CEO, and others raise concerns that the Houston and Philadelphia dollar downturns are in some way related to the conversion to PPM ratings. Remember the PPM economic impact study by Forrester Research, presented on July 20, 2005, at an RAB-PPM Task Force meeting, that found radio revenues would increase if markets converted to PPM, but would decrease if markets continued with diary measurement? Let me quote directly from RBR’s own article about the study:
"If radio adopts PPM, ad revenues will go up, but if it sticks with diaries, ad revenues will go down."
This finding was based on a survey of 189 advertisers and 295 agency executives.
Market dollars didn’t increase as a direct result of LPM becoming TV’s currency, therefore, it isn’t surprising that radio spending didn’t increase with the switch to PPM. It would have been nice, but …no, Virginia, it just didn’t happen.
Pat Liguori
SVP, Research & Electronic Measurement
ABC Owned TV Stations
