“When we hear news we should always wait for the sacrament of confirmation.” – Voltaire
Many are referring to Nielsen’s PPM (aka Voltair) webinar on Tuesday as anti-climactic, a letdown, or simply inconclusive. For those of us looking for some closure and resolution of this gnarly issue, the message from the Nielsen team is that “It’s complicated.”
I told Joel Denver’s All Access that my feeling following the webinar (yes, I managed to find a way to experience it in real-time) was similar to sitting through a long, difficult film, anxiously awaiting the ending. You may not enjoy how the story unfolds, but you sure care about how it concludes and you want it to be over.
And then comes that ambiguous ending, and the credits start to roll. I had that feeling as the Nielsen team wrapped up the webinar. What happened back there? What did it all mean? We’ve been waiting around for this?
How do you interpret Nielsen’s “non-support of Voltair?” Or Matt O’Grady’s reminder to “respect the currency,” and his expectation that broadcasters will play be the rules?
And so you leave the theater – or the webinar – with a sense of disappointment. And then on the drive home, the meaning begins to sink in. Trying to get to the bottom of the impact of the Voltair box is multi-layered. There’s the issues of outside and ambient noise, the infinite broadcast sources that include multiple styles of music and spoken word, and the specific settings on the Voltair box. In short, there are a lot of variables at play here.
And so if it took all of this teeth gnashing and hand wringing to get to this outcome, perhaps the journey – painful as it’s been – has been worth the aggravation. And even in the case of an estimated 600 stations, worth the expense. If the outcome of this episode is better, more accurate metered measurement, then the pain will be forgotten.
So much of what has gone on these past few days, weeks, and months seems so analogous to sports. This notion of “the good of the game” extends to baseball, football, and other sports where everyone from little leaguers to major leaguers are encouraged to play fair to protect the integrity of the game.
And yet, chea
ting – OK, call it “gaining a competitive edge” – has been part of all these sports from the very beginning. Whether it was spit-balls, deflated balls, corked bats, stealing signs, or juiced-up bodies, players and teams have always tried to gain the advantage without getting caught.
And so it is with radio and the ratings, too. That’s why it’s called “gaming the system.” From diaries to meters, broadcasters have sought out ways to tip the ratings in their favor, bending or even breaking the rules – without being flagged.
Give 25-Seven the credit they deserve. I’ve talked to those guys, and I believe they have a legitimate interest in leveling the playing field, helping broadcasters derive the most listening from meters, and aiding formats, music styles, and even announcers they feel have been under-presented by the current technology.
And if there’s been a better example of “stealth marketing” over the years than Voltair, I can’t remember it. This black box quietly became a secret weapon shared by hundreds of broadcasters – with no one talking to the trades or to each other. I spoke to managers who installed Voltair units, and didn’t even tell their programmers for fear this knowledge would eventually be passed along to the competition.
The “voodoo” of Voltair became the radio story of 2015 because as ratings were released in PPM market after market, broadcasters began to speculate about who had it…and who didn’t. When a station enjoyed a nice weekly or monthly increase, it had to be Voltair. When a morning show suddenly caught a little fire, it must have been due to that black box “steroid” quietly humming away in the rack room.
One of the best outcomes of this entire episode is that we may be closer to reaching that point again where ratings gains and losses will be credited to (or blamed on) the PD, the personalities, the research companies, and of course, the consultants.
Let’s face the fact that many increases stations have experienced during this crazy year might actually be attributable to great programming, savvy use of digital tools, and wonderful personalities and shows – and not just a box with flashing green lights. Some stations have actually been successful in these last many months without the benefit of hi-tech steroids.
So soon, it will be back on us. No excuses. No speculation. No guesswork.
You’re as good as your ratings.
Or your ratings are as good as you are.
Until someone discovers the next competitive edge.
By the way, it was fun sneaking into the “theater” and not having to pay.
“All this was indispensably necessary… for private misfortunes are public benefits; so that the more private misfortunes there are, the greater is the general good.” – Voltaire
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Some thoughts. Is Voltaire cheating if all it does is uncover more ACTUAL listening, or has Neilsen been cheating radio with a system that doesn’t give it full credit, particularly in certain formats? Isn’t Voltair more analogous to instant replay than a spitball?
When I was in radio I gamed Arbitron – 23-34 ratings fluctuated wildly and in ways that couldn’t be accurate given how every other age cell performed, the size of our 25-34 cume and the state of the Classic Rock format. And I got Arbitron to agree to pay more in my market for 25 -23 diaries. I wasn’t trying to get credit for listening that wasn’t there, just to get credit for listening that everyone know was, but every other book, like clockwork, disappeared.
Nielsen seemed to be saying, “that box don’t do nothin, but we gonna fix our system so you don’t need that box nohow anyway”. Kinda sounds like the Voltair people uncovered and addressed a real flaw in the PPM system and Nielsen decided to deny deny deny then address the problem in hopes of taking the issue off the table.
Sometimes it takes a push – in this case, 600 boxes in rack rooms around the U.S. – to instigate change. The story continues to unfold. Thanks, Bob.