This is first in a series of essays on the use of Arbitron ratings as a tool for Pacifica programming decision-making. While the information is specific to station KPFA in Berkeley, Pacifica's general trend of dealing with their audiences in the same manner as commercial audiences is clear in these reports.

SUBJECT: ARBITRON RATINGS AND TERMINOLOGY

[A list subscriber] asked about Arbitrons. Arbitron is one of several companies that do surveys aimed at determining how many and what kinds of people tune in to particular radio and TV programs and stations. Arbitron is the one usually consulted for "authoritative" information on radio, just as Nielsen is the leading authority on TV audiences.

In this message, I'll define some of the basic terms used in discussing Arbitron reports. This is very important if you are going to understand discussions about what KPFA/Pacifica management is doing, because their admitted purpose in making changes is to cause major increases in the Arbitron numbers. I'd suggest keeping this message for future reference because a lot of these terms can be confusing, and they come up over and over again in reports and memos from management. In the next message, I'll fill in some of the background that [ . . .] requested on how Arbitron gets their measurements. After that, I hope to turn to the specific data that KPFA used in designing the new format--which really helps you to see what they were trying to do.


Metro Survey Area (or just"METRO")
The San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose Metro Survey Area consists of the following counties: Sonoma, Marin, Napa, Solano, Contra Costa, Alameda, Santa Clara, and San Mateo. This is the central city region usually discussed when comparing Arbitron reports on commercial stations.

Area of Dominant Influence ("ADI")
Used mostly for television rating. This is the Metro Survey Area plus two more counties: Mendocino and Lake, and minus the eastern part of Solano County (which belongs to the Sacramento ADI). Whereas Metro Survey Areas can overlap, each location is defined as belonging to only one ADI.

Total Survey Area ("TSA")
The overall area considered when examining radio listenership. This is the Metro Survey Area plus the following counties: Glenn, Butte, Colusa, Sutter, Yuba, western Nevada, western Placer, Yolo, Sacramento, western El Dorado, Amador, San Joaquin, Calaveras, Stanislaus, Tuolumne, Merced, Mariposa, Santa Cruz, Monterey, San Benito. This area corresponds quite closely to the general signal area reached by KPFA, but it does not include much of the area reached by KFCF.

Diary Mention
A survey participant is given a diary with each day broken down into quarter-hour segments. He/she is supposed to note in each segment any station to which he/she listened for at least 5 minutes during that quarter hour, also noting whether the listening was "at home," "in car," or "other" (which is usually regarded as an "at work" value). The number of diary mentions in some period of time larger than a quarter hour could include multiple mentions by the same survey participant.

Daypart
A time period for which audience estimates are reported. In reports to the stations, most results are given for time blocks regarded as significant by radio program specialists, such as"morning drive time" (6 to 10 am, Monday through Friday). However, detailed tables are available that break down the results into half-hour blocks.

Cume Persons
An estimation of the number of different persons who listened to the station for at least five minutes during some daypart.

Cume Rating
The Cume Persons expressed as a percentage of the population of the area being considered. Usually given for the Metro only.

Average Quarter-Hour Persons ("AQHPERSONS")
An estimation of the number of different people listening to the station for at least 5 minutes during an average quarter-hour segment of the daypart under consideration.

Average Quarter-Hour Rating ("AQHRATING")
The Average Quarter-Hour Persons expressed as a percentage of the total population of the appropriate area.

Average Quarter-Hour Share ("AQHSHARE")
The Average Quarter-Hour Persons expressed as a percentage of the Average Quarter-Hour Persons for all radio during the daypart.

Time Spent Listening("TSL")
An estimate (in hours and minutes) of the total time the average person listening to the station was tuned to the station during the daypart.

I think that this covers the terms most commonly used in discussing Arbitron reports. [. . . ] Probably the most important distinctions are:

• Ratings vs Shares (% of population vs % of people using radio)
• AQH vs Cume (average listenership vs different people listening).

Let me expand a little on the latter distinction. The Cume Persons listening to KPFA during Morning Drive would be an estimate of the number of different people who listened to KPFA between 6 and 10 am Mon-Fri during an average week. The AQH Persons listening to KPFA during Morning Drive would be an average of the estimation for each quarter hour during the week. Thus you might have 9,000 people tuning in for at least five minutes during the average quarter-hour (AQH Persons), but 50,000 different people tuning in at some time or other during the week (Cume Persons). The former value gives you a rough measure of the average audience at any moment during a daypart; the latter gives you a measure of how many different people you reach altogether during that daypart.

Of course, the Arbitron reports are broken down by demographics such as particular location, age, sex, and ethnic background. These details are of major importance to advertisers and often are more important in program decisions than the overall numbers that you'll see quoted in the newspaper.

Note that KPFA has a lot of subscribers outside the Metro Survey Area, but most of the figures reported by Arbitron and used by management are taken only for the Metro.

To add one more layer of complexity, KPFA makes use of a service called Audigraphics that takes the Arbitron "book" (report) and turns it into a whole book full of pretty graphs with spiffy titles. This is what the KPFA people like to carry around and cite when justifying their changes. Audigraphics adds a few more terms that you may hear management use.

People Using Radio("PUR")
An estimate of either the AQH Persons or the Cume Persons listening to any station(s) at all in the appropriate time period. Because this term is not well defined, you need to be particularly careful that people are not mixing AQH and Cume when they use it.

Core Listeners
These are people whose TSL for KPFA is greater than their TSL for any other station.

Fringe Listeners
KPFA listeners who have a larger TSL for some other station than for KPFA.


Loyalty
The average listener's KPFA TSL as a percentage of their total radio TSL.

As we'll see later, these values with their emotionally laden names are bandied about heavily by the consultants. For example, KPFA's listeners are "less loyal" than those of the average commercial station--obviously a bad situation. In fact, it just means that KPFA listeners tend to listen to a variety of stations in addition to KPFA, rather than keeping their radios glued to the same station continuously.

As I said, keep this message handy. You'll need it as we get into the specifics of what the consultants told KPFA about their old programming. These Arbitron and AudiGraphics reports are incredibly complex, and management can readily find some numbers (or graphs) to use as justification for most any decision they might choose to make. You really need to pore over the details to be able to decide whether they are making sense or are completely misinterpreting some survey result.

In the next section, we'll take a quick look at how Arbitron gets their numbers and how reliable they are when applied to KPFA.

MORE ON ARBITRON