First Sat Arbitron “Book” released
http://www.radio-info.com/in3_src/images/SP07_National_Satellite_P12.pdf
Lots of interesting data, including the domination of Stern programming among Sirius listeners.
Post your favorite data extrapolation
Thanks to livingfruitvirus at XMFan for the find!
The non-surprise is that "mainstream" channels are more popular that "niche" channels! by RoadRunner
The non-surprise is that "mainstream" channels are more popular that "niche" channels!
Not I. by rustytrombone
The requested URL /in3_src/images/SP07_National_Satellite_P1 2.pdf was not found on this server.
The non-surprise is that "mainstream" channels are more popular that "niche" channels!
Not I.
Not I.
I agree it's no surprise that satrad programming is most successful when it follows mainstream programming concepts. Look at the top channels...they all feature mainstream music. And the most popular channel features the former most famous terrestrial personality (Howard). So "FM without commercials", usually said on here with disgust, is what most satrad customers seem to be listening to the most. So maybe Sirius isn't so clueless after all. I will say Fox News fans were right...that channel is one of the top channels in any genre. by itstrue
Not I.
Add 7 more to the Stern listeners! by rustytrombone
Add 7 more to the Stern listeners!
Satellite Radio and Terrestrial Radio are the same businesses. The 2 primary differences are the delivery model (Terr v. Sat), and the revenue model (Ads v. Subs) But ultimately they are both about getting more people to listen to you in their cars, then listen to the other guy! And the way to do that is to appeal to the masses, IMHO.
In the battle of artist-programmed stations, Buffett beat Eminem handily and both stomped Little Steven's Underground Garage, which only pulled an 800.
For all the complaints about Blue Collar Comedy when they put it on the air, it is by far the most popular comedy station.
And at a 600, Sirius' Stars apparently aren't nearly big enough. If this is supposed to be their premier non-Stern talk station, it needs some work. It gets beaten by all the other talk except E and Lime.
The old VJs apparently have some clout, too, as Big 80s beat Totally 70s, but over at XM, 70s on 7 beat 80s on 8 handily. Could it also be Stern has pulled a demo more likely to listen to 80s music, while XMs audience is more diverse age-wise?
Also disappointed at BBC 1. by friarboy
Joe, I (respectfully) disagree with you that there is good news for fans of the Bridge here. It's less popular that Movin' Easy, and essentially equal to Sirius Love and Starlite. It has half the CumeRating of the lowest ranked decade channel, Totally 70's. Only half the CumeRating of the classic rock channels.
Of course, it was also identical to MY favorite station, First Wave...so I got no room to brag! by RoadRunner
Not I.
Joe, I (respectfully) disagree with you that there is good news for fans of the Bridge here. It's less popular that Movin' Easy, and essentially equal to Sirius Love and Starlite. It has half the CumeRating of the lowest ranked decade channel, Totally 70's. Only half the CumeRating of the classic rock channels.
Of course, it was also identical to MY favorite station, First Wave...so I got no room to brag!
1 out of every 5 Sirius subs is listening to 100 and 101.
8600 listeners AQH for Sirius NASCAR Radio by Andrew8468
This information comes from Arbitron diaries. It doesn't specify whether these diaries were filled out by sat subscribers or not, in fact it states it doesn't know. It could be a SatRad subscriber, a friend of a subscriber, someone that heard it at their dentist's office, etc. They don't specify how, just what they were listening to at the time.
IMO, it really shouldn't be construed as an accurate representation of sat subscribers listening habits. It's just the data that they collected that referenced SatRad. by TheScionicMan
Also, I see 176, the channel with the Yankees games, has the most listeners (ugh). 177, Red Sox games, is in second. 184 came in third but I'm not sure what was played on that. by emory
If you check out the other formats that are well represented on terrestrial in most cities, like 60s and Hits 1, they also perform best on satellite.
One other thing to consider, Country is one of the top few rated formats but only has the 5 stations on Sirius. Rock has 3-4 times that, so its audience is more spread out. by friarboy
Waddle doodle!!! We are now ahead of the Nashville Channel and closing in on Big Tracks!!! Look out Big Tracks, here we come!!! by Jgatie
A)Howard, who left terrestrial causing a complete industry to burn to the ground and putting Sirius on top with break neck speed.
B)Two guys talking to a row of hedges. by Markz
I like the wackbag droolers that are still mumbling the Pavlovian "12+ is not there (sp) demographic!!! Show me the 'Males 18-35'!!!"
Uhhh, yoohoo!! Ppppests!! We are talking satellite here, demos don't matter. The only things that matter are subs and there's no damn difference between an 18 year old male sub and a 90 year old woman sub, unless XM offers a discount by demographic plan I don't know about.
But I guess I shouldn't be surprised. These are the same dorks who lapped up the E-Lo and Opie absurdities when they were squawking about 202 being #1, ignoring all facts in the process. I tell ya, facts are like Kryptonite to the pppests. by Jgatie
A)Howard, who left terrestrial causing a complete industry to burn to the ground and putting Sirius on top with break neck speed.
B)Two guys talking to a row of hedges.
1. The money spent on Martha and everyone on the Stars channel may as well have been flushed down the toilet. As soon as all of their contracts are up, dump them all.
2. Money spent on the Blue Collar comedy channel, on the other hand, was surprisingly worth it.
3. I can see why Planet Jazz was axed when the Grateful Dead got added.
4. There's room for consolidation in the Pops category - Starlite, Love, Movin Easy - lose one of these.
5. Really dissapointingly low ratings: Spectrum, Underground Garage, Disorder (probably my top three rock channels)
6. Surprisingly high ratings: Hair Nation (that many people still want this stuff?)
7. Now I'm even more confused why they dumped the DJs on Sirius Gold. Ratings for that channel are in line with the other popular decade channels (Vibrations, 70s).
8. I would have guessed Classic Vinyl did far better than Classic Rewind, but they're about the same. by Road Hog
1. The money spent on Martha and everyone on the Stars channel may as well have been flushed down the toilet. As soon as all of their contracts are up, dump them all.
2. Money spent on the Blue Collar comedy channel, on the other hand, was surprisingly worth it.
3. I can see why Planet Jazz was axed when the Grateful Dead got added.
4. There's room for consolidation in the Pops category - Starlite, Love, Movin Easy - lose one of these.
5. Really dissapointingly low ratings: Spectrum, Underground Garage, Disorder (probably my top three rock channels)
6. Surprisingly high ratings: Hair Nation (that many people still want this stuff?)
7. Now I'm even more confused why they dumped the DJs on Sirius Gold. Ratings for that channel are in line with the other popular decade channels (Vibrations, 70s).
8. I would have guessed Classic Vinyl did far better than Classic Rewind, but they're about the same.
From XMFan:
AQH (Average Quarter Hour)
http://www.xmfan.com/files/MasterArbsAQH.xls
TOTAL CUME (Total Unique Listeners)
http://www.xmfan.com/files/MasterArbsCume.xls by Dave_A
As I've noted before, Arbitron's analysis of satellite radio ratings is hopelessly flawed due to methodological circumstances which make these estimates closer to fiction than an episode of Bionic Woman.
I do believe there's some veracity in the proportions between the various channels, however. That is, the stuff that Arbitron shows as more popular is probably more popular in real life than the stuff they show as less popular. But do not under any circumstances believe these numbers beyond that.
XM - The Verge, Fine Tuning, Air Musique, Quoi De Neuf, Indy Car, Extreme XM, WSIX, WLW, National Lampoon, The Power, Radio Parallele and Reach MD. All XM needs to do is just dump these and spread the bandwidth over their music channels.
Sirius - Catholic Channel, Radio Korea, Hardcore Sports, Info Plus, RCI Plus, Rock Velours, World Radio Network, Premiere PLus, CBC Radio 1, Bloomberg, Sports Action, Lime, Iceberg, Bande Apart and BBC Radio 1. Do the same spread of bandwidth to music. by BigSexy
6. Surprisingly high ratings: Hair Nation (that many people still want this stuff?)
Hopefully, these high numbers will mean a more expanded playlist and some special shows on what is actually a premiere channel! by MixxMaster
Just can't feel it the same way. by rustytrombone
It seems particularly inappropriate to for an advertiser to be guided by these flawed ratings since so many people who may have been listening did not even have an opportunity to be counted. For example in the Spring of 2007, in Philly and Houston they used the PPM ( asort of electronic sensor instead of usual handwritten book) which only measured encoded stations. I doubt Sirius is encoded since they dont need them (other than maybe on their talk channels if they cant convince advertisers to buy outside of their Arbitron comfort zone) This means that in market 4 and 10 which is about 5% of the entire US coverage, Sirius received zero ratings. Also unsurveyed Arbitron areas such as boats, the Bahamas, and rural areas that Arbitron doesn't measure also get big fat zeros.
Also if you have ever seen an Arbitron book it is set up to review Terrestrial stations. If you look at the instructions, Sat Rad is barely even mentioned, nor is internet radio for that matter. Also, if someone listened to a program that is on both Sat Rad and Terrestrial and the diary keeper did not mention Sat Rad, the listening was attributed to the Terrestrial station. (Opie and Anthony on XM for one) Traditionally if Arbitron cannot tell the difference between two possibilities they are supposed to divide the credit. To my knowledge they did not do so here.
Also, yes the NFL ratings were low, but it was the Spring. Could we even expect any listenership then?
I have always felt that Martha Stewart, Eminem, Maxim, Cosmo and all of the other "name branded" channels are a waste of money. Clearly they are not getting listeners. Does Sirius believe that anyone picks their service because of these people? I don't. it sounds like Sirius management bought into a bunch of jargon from their marketing people instead of listening to the people who program and know how listeners use radio. It seems clear to me that people pick Sirius first for Howard Stern and second for the commercial free music. Even the commercial free Top 40 Hits 1 did great even though there is a top40 in every market in the country. This says to me that there is great value in the commercial free aspect. I would spend more money on making these channels better and let Martha and Eminen go to better direct the money. Just my 2 cents.
Doggie by DoggieStyle
Sirius - Catholic Channel, Radio Korea, Hardcore Sports, Info Plus, RCI Plus, Rock Velours, World Radio Network, Premiere PLus, CBC Radio 1, Bloomberg, Sports Action, Lime, Iceberg, Bande Apart and BBC Radio 1. Do the same spread of bandwidth to music.
My point is that basing such decisions on one set of numbers is jumping the gun. There are trouble stations, but I would want to see a second set of numbers first (internal Sirius tracking or the next Arbitron book).
And as mentioned, can't cut the Canadian channels due to CRTC requirements of how many channels they get. by unoriginal
Satellite radio is a pay service, certain people pay to have these niche channels that they can't get everywhere else. The entire draw for me was getting music formats not found anywhere, especially this god-forsaken radio cowtown. I also enjoyed listening to BBC World Service which was a different perspective on the news which you couldn't get from CNMSNBFOX. Any change to simply FM without commercials would keep me and others away for good.
I could give a flying fuck about Dopie & Ugly or Howie, shows like these are the reason I left terr radio in the first place, and I'm less interested in sports than I ever have been. And on that point, look at the average ratings of a typical sports talk station in any town that isn't New York, LA or Boston. Here sports talk barely registers even though this is 'Broncos Country'. The ratings for sports don't justify the cost of these packages for both companies. I imagine, with or without a merger, that there will be a serious re-negotiation of the cost of these sports packages once their current deals are up. by Jon
As much as I was vehemently opposed to this merger in the beggining, I'm starting to soften on the idea, especially if it means keeping all the niche channels while still being able to have the 'FM Without Commercials' that most people in america want. by Jon
Or....maybe it's the truth? by emory
i have never received one of these but then again, i am in dallas which apparently doesn't get these. by ussmak
I would cancel my Sirius subs in a heartbeat if some of my somewhat low rated niche channels are removed. And yes, I listen to mainstream music just as much as the niche, so I am far from a musical snob. It's all about the variety. Otherwise, KRBE, The Buzz, Jack, Party 1049, and KILT, and my MP3 player, would be plenty for me. by NHTracker
Having said that however, Hardcore Sports has actually gotten to be pretty good - they've got some Ferrell-type sport show hosts now. When the survey was taken, Hardcore was basically just a sports news channel. by outtatheblue
This is from todays Radioandrecords.com website:
"By R.J. Curtis, illustration by Dave Ember
What if someone threw a ratings party and nobody came? It seems inconceivable, but since Arbitron made audience estimates for satellite radio public for the first time in October, there seems to be little if any buzz, with hardly so much as a few discouraging words.
Ratings for individual channels on XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio were based on 466,000 persons 12+ in 300 markets during the 2007 spring book. The findings did not include data from any markets where the Portable People Meter (PPM) is the ratings currency.
A quick overview shows XM’s weekly cume at 10,332,900 persons, while Sirius checks in with 6,595,000. The channel that led the way for both satellite providers was no real shocker: Howard Stern’s Howard 100 has a weekly cume of slightly more than 1.2 million. XM’s Top 20 on 20 channel also tops 1 million (see sidebar).
What’s apparent when looking at the numbers is that whether it’s music or talk, mainstream formats are the preferred choice even among satellite listeners.
Mark Ramsey, president of Mercury Radio Research and Hear 2.0, an audio entertainment strategy company, says the proportions feel right. “It makes sense that a top 40 station would be the most popular or that Stern would be one of the most popular channels,” he says.
Jacobs Media founder Fred Jacobs agrees. The results are interesting, he says, “because when you think about satellite radio you think about more niche tastes,” but it’s the more mainstream channels that do well, “so the hits are the hits are the hits.”
And while XM executive VP of programming Eric Logan says the ratings information is nothing that would surprise a programmer, he does believe that the focus of a channel such as ’60s on 6, which has a weekly cume of 619,600, comes into play. “It tells you the strength of what we have to offer, which is content that’s not readily available on terrestrial radio,” he says.
(Sirius declined R&R’s request to comment for this story.)
‘Gross Inconsistencies’
But Logan doesn’t completely buy into Arbitron’s measurement of satellite listening. There are, he says, “gross inconsistencies in relativity of channels between what we see in our surveys and what Arbitron does.” As an example, Logan cites ratings for baseball play-by-play, which, according to Arbitron’s results, are “almost nonexistent.”
XM surveys show baseball is “a very big, popular, highly listened-to piece of content on our network,” Logan says. XM spokesman Nathaniel Brown told New York’s Daily News in October that Arbitron measurement had the listenership for XM’s Major League Baseball channels at less than 400,000 per week, while XM’s own figures indicated that in July it was about 2.3 million.
Part of the reason for the disparity may be the methodology, some of which is unique to measuring satellite radio. As outlined by Arbitron, “In instances where it is not clear if a diarykeeper was attempting to record listening to a terrestrial station, or to a satellite radio channel, Arbitron’s diary edit procedures presume that the diarykeeper was attempting to record listening to an AM or FM radio station.”
That doesn’t sit well with Logan. “If you’re driving around in Los Angeles and you write down, ‘Dodger game,’ and you happen to be listening to the Dodgers on XM, the local station is going to get the credit if it’s not clearly [attributed] to the satellite radio provider.”
It’s not just an issue with baseball, Logan says, because there’s also shared content among XM, Sirius and terrestrial radio. For example, both satcasters and terrestrial radio carry Sean Hannity. “The same phenomenon happens there,” Logan says, maintaining that satellite listening isn’t always credited.
The diary methodology appears to be the big disconnect for most of those who have scoured the satellite ratings data so far. “When you get a diary from Arbitron that has columns that say ‘AM’ and ‘FM’ and no column that says ‘Internet’ or ‘satellite,’ are you to conclude that kind of listening is wrong, at least for the purposes of this exercise?” Ramsey asks.
Logan adds, “The diary is the same diary that’s been in use for many years. It’s not set up to capture the [satellite] services.”
Beginning with the fall 2006 survey, Arbitron modified the instruction page on the inside of the diary cover to include the following language: “If you listen over the Internet or to a satellite radio service, please include the station name or channel number.” References to “Internet” and “satellite” were added to the checklist and sample appearing on the inside cover of the diary.
Consultant Jaye Albright of Albright & O’Malley says the instructions are confusing. “I looked at the diary and if it’s telling me to write down listening on satellite or Internet, it’s a very well-hidden instruction,” she says. “It’s there, but very well-camouflaged.”
Even if someone were to dutifully follow the written instructions Arbitron provides, Ramsey believes that in order to correctly identify a satellite station, more information is needed than is required for terrestrial radio. “It’s more work to complete a response,” he wrote in a recent Hear 2.0 blog, “and when it’s more work to do something, fewer folks will do it.”
And Albright says that while she believed in the process of trying to demonstrate listening levels for satellite, “the race was kind of set up against it.”
That's only part of the article because you have to be subscriber for the rest of it. But you can clearly see that XMs programmers are definitely not taking it as gospel truth. by NHTracker
I didn't mean to single your post out, there was just a lot of remarks about how so and so didn't get counted, etc. and I was just pointing out what it was. by TheScionicMan
I didn't mean to single your post out, there was just a lot of remarks about how so and so didn't get counted, etc. and I was just pointing out what it was.
I would hope that doesn't happen. But then again, they have removed such programming in the past in favor of 'mainstream' fare. Arbitron is exactly what I didn't want to have happen in satellite radio, that's why I didn't care who was listening to what stations, the fact that people are paying to get these formats should tell them everything. by Jon