Comments on: Mythbusters in San Francisco – the PPM

By: Daniel Owen

Daniel Owen — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 14:27:30 +0000

Trivial observation, but am I right in thinking that with a PPM we would lose the ‘other listening’ heading, because non-subscribing stations wouldn’t have the kit to broadcast the inaudible tone? Not a problem for subscribing stations, but it would seem to reduce the accuracy of the research a little, I would have thought.

By: Commercial Radio Australia - James Cridland

Commercial Radio Australia - James Cridland — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:01:52 +0000

[...] a believer about the effectiveness of PPM, pointing out the issues with breakfast listening that I’ve mentioned in the past. She demolishes arguments I’ve heard from Arbitron; points out that she’s [...]

By: The portable people meter – changing the sound of radio - James Cridland

The portable people meter – changing the sound of radio - James Cridland — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:01:38 +0000

[...] while back, I wrote about the Portable People Meter – the PPM, which many countries and markets are now using for measurement of radio listening, [...]

By: Stuart

Stuart — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 20:40:52 +0000

Not that iPods have radios (well apart from the most recent ones) but I get your point :)

Sounds a bit of a nightmare to set up – they would need to provide leads for all the various jacks, and have some way to get the device to recognise the PPM as a ‘legal’ device. My Nokia phone will only take specific Nokia headphones for example… not even a pair of the same brand and jack type from 5 years ago will work! I wonder what a PPM on the headphones would do to reception too?

By: James Cridland

James Cridland — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:39:54 +0000

Hi, Dan – thanks for the comment. But how is this a fault with PPM, and not a fault with the older diary system? Surely both have sampling issues?

(I’ve been with a radio person in Dallas today; another perspective coming soon on the blog.)

By: Dan Steele

Dan Steele — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:39:19 +0000

One concern many broadcasters in the US have with PPM, especially public broadcasting stations with admittedly smaller audiences but higher TSL is that PPM seems to be favoring the most mainstream formats, and it’s harder to get participation among certain demographics. If you look at what happened with the modern/new rock format in the US, it wasn’t a lack of listeners, it was the fact that convincing the target to carry a diary (or device) is a very hard sell. It doesn’t mean our formats aren’t sellable to advertisers. But with PPM stations like this have taken some very hard hits in the numbers.

By: James Cridland

James Cridland — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 03:33:30 +0000

I think you plug your PPM into the iPod and the headphones into the PPM. I think.

By: Stuart

Stuart — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:29:18 +0000

The one question that I’ve never seen answered about these electronic devices is: How do they take account of listening on headphones?

Almost every (non-Apple) phone and mp3 player has an FM radio these day but surely all those listener minutes will be invisible to a PPM?