Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 22, 1995 TAG: 9502230039
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
WYYD (107.9 FM) was the top station overall in both the Arbitron and AccuRatings surveys of last fall, but that was where the similarities between the two surveys ended.
Comparisons between them reveal a jumble of positions and numbers for the rest of the top 10.
In the last year, the new, less-expensive AccuRatings survey has drawn four of the top 10 as clients away from the older, established Arbitron company. Radio stations pay - as much as $40,000 a year - for the survey results.
AccuRatings' clients include WROV-FM (96.3), WJLM (J-93), WXLK (K-92) and WRDJ/WLDJ (Oldies DJs), and it continues to woo other stations, including WYYD.
The big advertising agencies still rely on the Arbitron numbers, said Barbara Rexrode, general manager of WYYD. For that reason, even if her station were to become an AccuRatings subscriber it likely would continue to buy Arbitron as well, she said.
"Arbitron is, by far, the most widely accepted."
But some others sense a change may be coming.
WROV general manager Mike Slenski said he believes the AccuRatings system is the more accurate reflection of radio habits. It is also the one in which his stations generally get higher numbers, and the only one he now subscribes to.
And Marty Hall of System IV advertising said AccuRatings "could have an impact in the market. We're all pulling for a second resource" of information to base buying decisions on, he said.
Arbitron uses the classic radio-ratings method of asking listeners to keep a diary in which they record which stations they are listening to in each quarter-hour of the day.
AccuRatings calls listeners and asks them which station they "listen to most" during the day, as well as other questions.
The AccuRatings survey includes 1,791 households, while Arbitron looks at 933 diaries from about 550 households.
"We think AccuRating has a better sample," Slenski said, producing more consistent results by surveying a larger number of listeners. His WROV-AM and FM stations in Roanoke, as well as the WLNI stations in Lynchburg, have been subscribing to the new service for a year.
Although the two surveys found similar numbers for a few stations - K-92 got a 9.4 in one survey and a 9.5 in the other - most are different, as is the order of the top 10 (see chart). The rating numbers are supposed to reflect the percentage of all radio listeners in an average day for each station.
WYYD, for instance, garnered a 13.8 rating in the Arbitron survey and a 16.6 in the AccuRatings. The more powerful and dominant stations in the market generally fared better, in terms of their rating number, in the AccuRating survey.
The numbers can make a difference to advertising buying services. Some of those make decisions solely on the lowest "cost per point" - that is, the advertising rate divided by a station's rating. At competing stations having similar advertising rates, the "cost per point" would be lowest at the station with the highest rating.
The rating information actually is broken down dozens of ways - by age, gender, race, locality, even by what products the listeners buy. For instance, in the AccuRatings survey the most-listened to station among retirees was WFIR, a talk-radio AM; among domestic beer drinkers, WROV-FM was number one; among personal-computer owners, WYYD was number one; and among those with post-graduate degrees, public radio WVTF held a hefty lead. (Arbitron only provides ratings for commercial stations.)
Among some key demographic groups, the top of the pack was most crowded. For instance, among 18-34 year olds - considered a key buying group - WYYD and WROV-FM were tied for first place in the Arbitron survey and within one-tenth of a point of each other at the top of AccuRatings.
The ratings services also try to figure out where the listeners are. AccuRatings, for instance, calculates that 83 percent of WYYD's audience is in the Lynchburg metropolitan statistical area - which includes Amherst, Appomattox, Bedford city and county and Campbell County, as well as Lynchburg. The other leading country FM, J-93, has 94 percent of its audience in the Roanoke MSA, which includes Roanoke, Roanoke County, Salem and Botetourt County.
K-92 can attribute at least some of its consistent strength to the fact that it divides its audience almost evenly between the MSAs, with 54 percent of its audience in the Roanoke area and 46 percent around Lynchburg.
Those are the kinds of details that can make a difference to people like Hall at System IV when he's making a decision on which station his clients should buy. He uses both ratings services, but said he is particularly impressed with the breakdowns of information available in AccuRatings.
Hall also believes the data for the 18- to 34-year-olds is probably more reliable in AccuRatings. "People who won't read a newspaper probably are going to be a little lazy about filling out a diary," Hall said, referring to studies that show young adults are less likely to be newspaper readers than older adults.
Representatives of both Arbitron and AccuRatings reportedly are courting clients in the market this month.
by CNB