Thanks to PPM, SQAD Inc. is pitching its services more to radio stations these days.
The company says its Spot Radio service can provide managers and sales directors with market-specific Cost Per Point data that will help them navigate the change to the Arbitron PPM environment.
The firm sells broadcast spot and network media cost-reporting and forecasting. It notes that radio execs are having to decide whether to adjust rates to reflect ratings changes that may be caused by the switch in methodology, not trends in audience preferences.
“Listener levels in the initial PPM cities are up, but station ratings are down,” it stated. “Smaller stations that almost never appeared in the paper diaries are now getting rated, and the total audience during various dayparts is considerably larger than previously reported.”
SQAD said its typical subscribers in the past were ad and media-buying agencies, but the onset of PPM has caused stations to seek more demographic and cost data to price ad time.
Its estimates, SQAD says, enable executives to better determine “where daypart and demographic price points in their local market are right now, where their station is in relation to that market, and where they’d like it to be.” For instance, some stations are finding new value in timeslots like weekends that never got much attention before.
