What happens when people report on their own behavior

When I was a kid, there was a pizza place in the neighborhood that we never went to. My Dad said, "Nobody ever goes there. It's always too crowded."

Apparently some radio stations are like that.

Seems when you ask people to report what stations they listen to, they tell you they don't listen to the most popular stations. This issue has recently hit my city, as reported in the Seattle Times: Seattle radio rankings shaken up.

Arbitron, the company that supplies ratings for radio stations, is switching the way they determine who's listening to what. The old system was to have folks write in a daily diary what they listened to.

The new system provides people with a device called a Portable People Meter that they keep with them; it detects an inaudible signal and records what people are actually in earshot of throughout the day.

When the ratings company went from recording what people said they listened to to tracking what they actually listened to, there were a few changes:

Two "adult contemporary" stations jumped into the top two spots. A venerable news/talk station fell from #3 to #17. The conservative talk station plummeted from #9 to #21. There were changes up and down the dial. No small amount of weeping and gnashing of teeth ensued, as ratings determine ad rates.

Ask people what they listen to, and they'll tell you what stations they think highly of. Or what they think they ought to listen to. Or what they think you think they ought to listen to. But sometimes -- often enough that the Portable People Meter creates a newsworthy shake-up of radio ratings when it enters a new market -- what people say and what people do are very different things.

Here's the good news for us fundraisers: If you do direct mail, email, or any other form of direct-response fundraising, you already have a "portable people meter" that accurately measures what people actually do.

Congratulations.

Technorati Tags: fundraising, Arbitron, research

Comments

[GT]

I'm in agreement with Lindsay M. -- I am exposed to "Adult Contemporary" all day long at my job, but I don't pay attention to it. What I actively listen to are the news stations on my way to work, and some NPR on the weekends. Since the data from the "Portable People Meter" can't account for active preferences, it's interesting but not the end-all-and-be-all of information about listening habits.

[T. Martin Smith]

Excellent story. Reminds me of Direct Response fundamental principle. Success means relating to people where they are and not where you would have them be.

Ask people if they like direct mail and they will tell you no. But somehow good non-profits with great offers continue to raise important support for their missions.

[Lindsay M.]

Very interesting, if not entirely surprising. One question about the people meter: If it's picking up everything the person is in earshot of, how does that accurately track personal preference? For example, what if someone's in a doctor's office or some other place blasting the adult contemporary station that the person would never of their own volition turn on?

I for one do not listen to the radio (really, I don't) but am exposed to it all day long. As a test subject I'd be throwing it the numbers way off.