Features on music stations contribute more to long-term brand development than quick audience building.
This is the major conclusion of a study in which Coleman Insights analyzed the performance of 15 programming features that ran on Philadelphia music stations; it used audience data from Arbitron’s Portable People Meter service.
“What our findings are telling us is that stations should view features as tools for building their brands and developing their personalities and not as something that will give them an immediate bump in PPM-based listening levels,” said Coleman President Jon Coleman.
“When a feature truly succeeds, the audience growth happens over weeks and months and cannot usually be seen in a single airing.”
The company found that audience tune-in specifically for features is inconsistent and not dramatic when it does occur.
In addition, Coleman compared the PPM-based results with listener evaluations of these features collected in a 600-person, telephone-based perceptual study.
