Radio’s Interregnum and the Mob

Mark Ramsey, at Hear 2.0, has a terrific interview with Bob Garfield, host of WNYC’s “On the Media,” a program that you can hear nationally on NPR. I actually subscribe to the podcasts on iTunes, lending lots of credence to the points that Bob is making in his talk with Mark.

The title of Mark’s article is “Radio: The End is Near – Unless you heed Bob Garfield,” which drove me to thinking in terms of “interregnum,” the period between two monarchies. One of the most famous interregnums, the one that is called The Interregnum, was the period between 1649 and 1660 in England. This was a period of great change and turmoil, but resulted in the establishment of a republican commonwealth in England. Many people felt that the world was coming to an end during this time. And, for many (not the least, King Charles I) it did. But, for those who made it through and adapted to the new way of viewing the world, it opened up a whole new vision.

Part of that vision remained rooted in the depths of human nature. And, such it is with radio’s interregnum. Garfield points out that those running the “radio” business today have forgotten about the “hoi polloi,” the common man, descendants in spirit of The Interregnum’s revolutionary Mob.

One quote struck me in particular:

You see, the hoi polloi have much to offer you. They can be idea generators for you, they can be evangelists, they can be your defacto marketing team, they can create for you, they can do product development – just because they don’t pay attention to your advertising anymore doesn’t mean they don’t care deeply about your product. They’re a community that you have painstakingly built and they care about you. And instead of just treating them like wallets with circulatory systems, you can start embracing them, exploiting them and having conversation with them, and it can yield enormous, enormous, enormous dividends.

This is the key, fundamental problem that radio (or whatever you call it) faces today. Many (but not all) broadcasters have forgotten this key point – that people want to be deeply involved with the “radio” programming they listen to. It is a connection that has been around since the first crystal sets… probably connected to our ancestral heritage of storytelling and communal experience. But, as Bob says, many broadcasters are treating their audiences “…like wallets with circulatory systems…” Radio is hard work. Not just on the business side, but on the creation side as well. There are folks who get this, and they have created ecosystems that are not dependent on just the “100,000 watt flamethrower on the top of the Empire State building,” as Scott Shannon put it back in the ’80s (wow, isn’t that imagery great?).

Roger Utnehmer, owner of Nicolet Broadcasting in Sturgeon Bay, WI, has created something that goes down that path. It’s called Door County Daily News, and it ties together his cluster of four radio stations with a web “newspaper.” Is it perfect? No – but I have a feeling that if you go to the community of Sturgeon Bay (it’s about 40 miles to the northeast of Green Bay, on a peninsula that juts out into Lake Michigan) and Door County, you will find a deep connection to these media vehicles. I met Utnehmer last fall, and after a conversation with him it was clear that he “gets it” as far as radio’s future goes. He travels the country (I met him in Alaska) spreading the gospel about how to make the transition through the interregnum.

Because that’s what this time is – it’s the period between one regime and another. Between the regime of single point of origination media and the regime of true multi-media. It is exciting, it is refreshing and the people who know how to do radio well (like Roger Utnehmer) will flourish. Those that don’t? Well, read the history of Cromwell. But be aware – Cromwell was posthumously executed.

Comparing PPM Streaming Data to Actual Server Stream Metrics

Mark Ramsey, in a recent article on Hear 2.0, posed an interesting exercise for broadcasters – calculate the difference between your stream’s cume in PPM to the records that your CDN provides for total unique connections for the same period.

He asked for responses to these case studies. So – in an effort to make this easy to do, here’s a link to a spreadsheet where you can enter the info for your stream and compare the results with others:

Has Arbitron really exited the streaming audio measurement biz?

Katy Bachman, in a brief article in MediaWeek reporting on the decision by TargetSpot to use AndoMedia for its streaming audio measurement, also stated that:

Arbitron quietly decided to get out of the streaming radio ratings business earlier this year and discontinued its relationship with comScore. According to industry sources, Arbitron was unable to make money from the business faced with a competitor who charged little or nothing for the ratings and delivered them as a byproduct of its ad server business.

Well, it must have been very quiet, because the only other mention of this I found was on the blog Internetradioworld in a post on April 9th:

According to industry sources, Arbitron was unable to make money from the business faced with Ando Media, their main competitor, who charged little or nothing for the ratings and delivered them as a byproduct of its ad server business.

InternetRadioWorld’s blog entry seems to be an analysis of the impact of such an exit on the industry.

Both of these articles were within days of Arbitron and Edison’s announcement of the research from their “Infinite Dial 2009″ survey indicating that online radio listening cume audience has increased to 42 Million.

Now – Michael Skarzynski, the new CEO at Arbitron, and all the other folks at Arbitron, are pretty smart. I strongly doubt that Arbitron is “getting out” the streaming audio measurement business and leaving it to AndoMedia. And the folks at ComScore are quite bright, too. Measurement of streaming media has been a big investment for them and the market for this data is only going to grow. So, what’s up here?

Arbitron Adding Significant New Feature to PPM

In the flurry of press announcements heralding the start of the NAB Show in Las Vegas today, Harmonic Inc. and Arbitron Inc. announced the use of Harmonic’s Rhozet™ Carbon Coder universal transcoding technology in Arbitron’s PPM media research services. In a quote from the press release, Taymoor Arshi, Chief Technology Officer at Arbitron, said:

“Our goal is to offer our customers new measurement solutions using our Portable People Meter technology. Our integration with Rhozet Carbon Coder helps by providing customers with the ability to prepare their content within their current workflows for inclusion in our media research services.”

The press release further states:

The Carbon Coder software will be used in production pipelines to embed an inaudible code into the audio portion of entertainment and advertising content. This code can be detected by the Arbitron Portable People Meter™ (PPM™).

What does this mean for the PPM service? Theoretically, any digitally processed content – programming, commercials, and so on – can be encoded with this technology. Currently, a special “PPM™ Encoder” is required to insert the sub-audible code in the content, typically in the audio chain of the broadcaster. While perfect for measurement of media outlet audience, the current technology does not allow for the direct measurement of specific program elements like commercials and features. The Rhozet Carbon Coder will allow Arbitron to measure audience levels for all encoded media content – regardless of the source. For example, to measure exposure to a specific commercial or album track, you would need to know the exact time that the content aired on each outlet. You would then need to cross-tab this information with the PPM™ rating for that exact time, for every outlet. While not impossible, the current state of reporting of this information is quite challenging. One company, MediaMonitors (a division of RCS, which is owned by Clear Channel) has built a business around this process with ground-breaking products like Audience Reaction™ and Mscore™. MediaMonitors accomplishes this by electronically monitoring radio stations, storing “fingerprints” of the content in their database, and then cross-tabbing with the minute-by-minute PPM™ data. The power of MediaMonitor’s solution is that it does not require encoding of the content prior to broadcast. The weakness – in the new world of encoded content that Arbitron and Harmony are creating – is that for encoded content, you will be able to determine exposure whether or not the outlet itself is encoding. An advertiser would be able to have a window on exposure to a specific commercial – whether video or audio – across all platforms that are measurable by the PPM™ device. This is very powerful, and when fully matured, the technology will have the potential to change the media marketplace in very significant ways.

Imagine, if you will, a video that is originally aired on a broadcast TV network. The audio is re-broadcast on radio stations around the country. Clips of the video are posted on YouTube. Elements of the video are edited and placed in various podcasts. Re-runs air on cable networks. Jon Stewart airs a clip. You get the idea – all of the exposure to this content will be measurable in PPM™ markets if the original content is encoded with the Arbitron/Rhoznet Carbon Code.

This relatively quiet announcement at a trade show generally focused on broadcast engineering will have a profound impact on the entire business of media. And, it’s another “shot across the bow” by Arbitron to it’s rival, Nielsen.

Interview with Ernest H. Clay of ARB

I found an archived interview of Ernest H. Clay of ARB, circa 1960, on the subject of TV ratings as they stood at the time. Very informative and many of the questions raised are the same that we hear today. Listen here.