Arbitron says that PPM is likely to cost Radio anywhere from 40% to 65% more than the current diary-based methodology.
This is no surprise to me, but if anyone expects advertisers to pay more for "more accurate" results, they need to have their heads examined.
Advertisers want more "accuracy" because that helps them decide when to pay less, not more. Ratings have always been used as a tool against Radio by advertisers just as they have been used as a tool against advertisers by Radio.
Everyone on both sides of a war wants better tools, but it’s easy to understand why one side would bristle at paying up to 65% more for the other side’s armament.
I happened to be watching Fox’s Trading Spouses the other night. In this episode, each mom decides how the other mom will spend her winnings. Mom A determined that Mom B would spend virtually all of the money on eco-friendly engines for their boats and charitable causes, and Mom B accepted this happily, even though she received little fun money. Mom B, meanwhile, devoted a huge chunk of Mom A’s money to a cash prize, which pleased her greatly. In fact, when Mom A thought she wouldn’t get a big cash bonus, she was visibly irritated. Even though she herself jipped Mom B out of any bonus of her own.
The lesson, friends, is that it’s easy for one party to determine what another party should do with the other party’s money.
For the advertisers, a 65% rate hike is no skin off their nose. And make no mistake, they will use this against us.