Arbitron PPM shows bigger radio audiences for play by play sports.

The Arbitron Portable People Meter (PPM SM) consistently captures more listeners to sporting events on radio, especially those with afternoon and early-evening start times, according to a new presentation released by Arbitron Inc.

The study, “The Value of Play-by-Play in a PPM World,” shows broadcasters and advertisers how the PPM delivers much quicker, more reliable and more detailed insight into sports radio broadcasting than the current radio ratings system. The presentation, released at the Radio Play-by-Play Industry Conference in Chicago, shows larger audiences to sports radio during major sporting events such as World Cup Soccer, the NFL Football Draft and for regular local team games.

“Electronic measurement via the PPM is better, more reliable, faster and more granular than other means of measuring play-by-play audiences,” said John Snyder, vice president, PPM Sales, Arbitron. “With the PPM, we can see higher ratings and larger audiences during specific kinds of sports programming, especially during the afternoon and early evening, including the evening rush hour, when listeners aren’t near a television.”

While the standard Arbitron radio diary does indicate that flagship sports stations have higher total (cume) audiences during a regular season, the Arbitron PPM shows a significantly larger total audience for play-by-play sports then does the paper and pencil diary.

In addition cume audiences for play-by-play sports is directly linked with start time. For the most part, earlier games will have higher cumes, according to the presentation.

Key examples included in the presentation:

Talk show audiences increase after big wins or losses. While average cume audience (September to December 2005) to “Talk Football with David Carr” in Houston is about 8,700 persons age 6 and older. On the Monday after a close loss, the cume was 21,000 persons. On the Monday after a victory, it was even higher, at 25,600 persons 6 plus World Cup Soccer recorded huge audiences on Spanish language Houston radio stations. While the May average cume for KEYH-AM/KXGJ-FM was just under 25,000 persons, audiences increased in June to over 153,000 during several World Cup broadcasts.

The NFL Draft proved a big draw on KILT-AM, particular when the Houston Texans surprised local fans. On Saturday, April 29 at exactly noon, the Houston Texans kicked off the 71st NFL Draft with a bang by passing up on Reggie Bush and selecting defensive end Mario Williams with the No. 1 pick. Audiences from the NFL Draft jumped from 12,600 cume at 10 A.M. to nearly 45,000 at noon the same day.

Radio ratings to sports events are directly related to the proportion of the audience that is out of home. Because of the impact of out of home audience on radio ratings, radio and TV audiences to the same sporting event tend to be complementary. As one medium declines, the other will tend to rise.

“With PPM, stations and advertisers get more frequent updates during the season,” Snyder said. “The combination of electronic measurement and daily sample size allows PPM to pick up special features and events the diary never could, enabling stations to enhance overall programming.

“The change from diary to PPM will impact everything from selling cycles to ratings to the ability to monetize special features,” he said. “In all likelihood, the ‘emotional’ sell of sports will be replaced with a more ‘fact-based’ sell, and this ‘estimate driven’ world should bring new advertisers to play-by-play who hadn’t considered it before. PPM opens the door to a whole new level of understanding that wasn’t possible with the diary.”

The full presentation and a webcast replay CLICK below:
http://www.arbitron.com/portable_people_meters/play_by_play.htm