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Device shakes up radio rankings

Meters measure what people hear, not what they claim they hear

By Steve Law

The Portland Tribune, Dec 17, 2009 (1 Reader comment)

L.E. BASKOW / TRIBUNE PHOTO

K-103's most popular radio show is co-hosted by John Erickson (right) and Bruce Murdock, with Dana Jeffries (left) offering traffic and weather updates. K103, which is a mainstay in office environments, jumped to a huge lead over other Portland-area radio stations in total listenership, based on early results from ‘personal people meters’ – new electronic devices used to measure radio audiences.

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Portlanders have been saying for years that they listened to public radio more than anything else.

But it turns out they aren’t as refined or cerebral as they claimed to be.

A new — and more accurate — way of measuring radio listenership shows Portland-area residents are soaking up soft rock and oldies to a much greater extent than previously reported. And while public radio station KOPB once reigned as No. 1, preliminary statistics from new electronic measuring devices indicate that it dropped to 11th-highest in total listenership among local stations in October.

K103, which airs adult contemporary music, rocketed to the top in total listenership in October, while oldies station KLTH leapfrogged over several rivals to finish second.

This reshuffling of radio rankings is due to the new “portable people meter,” which 1,300 people in the metro area are now carrying. The new audience measuring system officially takes effect next month and could shake up Portland radio, as stations learn more about what formats are working, and advertisers rethink where to put their money.

“It will cause a grand shift in the landscape in Portland,” says Bill Cooper, general manager at KBPS-AM at Benson Polytechnic High School, who earlier worked at four commercial stations.

Arbitron Inc., the Columbia, Md., company that has a monopoly on measuring radio listenership, is phasing in the portable people meters across the nation. Meters are replacing the personal diaries, used for about 50 years, that required people to jot down the stations they listened to each week.

Now testers are wearing electronic devices resembling pagers, which interpret encoded radio signals. Portable people meters track each radio station within earshot, whether it’s played at home, in the car or at the dentist’s office.

When Arbitron rolled out the new people meters in other urban markets, there were complaints that they undercount black and Latino listenership and use smaller samples of people than under the diary system.

Devices don’t lie

But no one disputes that the new meters are more accurate.

“The diaries, whether it’s radio or TV, have always sucked, because they’re just not very reliable,” says Pete Schulberg, a former TV newsman and newspaper media columnist, who now serves as communications director for the Oregon Partnership, a nonprofit focusing on substance-abuse prevention.

“People knew it in the business, but it was the only game in town,” Schulberg says.

People filling in diaries often recapped what stations they listened to several hours or days later.

Now it appears many people were overstating how much they listened to their favorite station, and may have listed what they thought they ought to listen to, not what they actually heard.

“Stations that people cared about the most, listened to the most and were most important to them tended to get more than they were due in their diaries,” says Tom Thomas. He’s chief executive officer of The Station Resource Group in Takoma Park, Md., a membership organization providing a variety of services for public stations, including OPB.

In markets where Arbitron has rolled out the portable people meters, NPR stations are taking hits much like OPB — including KUOW in Seattle and KCRW in Santa Monica, Calif.

Liberal talk station KPOJ also fares poorly, one of the few Portland-area stations to register a drop in total listenership under the new system.

Schulberg likens it to television viewers who often said they loved TV documentaries but rarely watched them.

In contrast to the diaries, people meters don’t lie.