Moneyball: All You Need is Three (Minutes)

Nuvoodoo Research: Leigh Jacobs & Carolyn Gilbert

With apologies to Paul McCartney and the late John Lennon, in case you now have one of their songs now running through your head, all the listening you need for credit in a PPM quarter hour is now three minutes, instead of five. As we noted last week, the first month’s PPM data with the new three-minute threshold in place shows AQH up 14% overall. That’s lower than the 18%-20% that had been talked about in the months leading up to the change, but within expectations given the ongoing erosion of all linear media.

As programmers and managers contemplate how best to play this new game, a few suggestions dropped out of Nielsen’s commentary.

For years, programmers have avoided scheduling spot breaks in the first five minutes of a clock quarter hour to try to ensure the station gets credit for the quarter hour. Typically, spot breaks begin at :20 and :50 after the hour to try to maximize listening credit. But, with three minutes now getting credit for a quarter hour, those breaks could start at :18 and :48. On the other end of the quarter hour, you would get credit for a meter wearer who heard the station from :27 to :30. An occasion that spanned :12 to :18 – just six minutes – would get credit for two quarter hours – that’s a big difference from the previous environment where they’d have to listen for ten minutes.

The window for spot breaks in, say, the second quarter hour grows from :20 – :25 (which won’t hold today’s typical six-and-a-half-minute spot break) to :18 – :27 (and so on across the other quarter hours). That nine-minute window even allows some room to counterprogram breaks on your most important rival stations. And we’ll urge strongly that you take advantage of such counterprogramming in 2025.

As a music source, streamers like Spotify and Apple Music have a tremendous advantage compared to radio: if a listener doesn’t like a song on streaming, they can SKIP to the next song. The equivalent for radio is FLIP. Since most cars on the road today have controls for volume and toggling between presets right on the steering wheel, if you don’t like the song on the radio, you can always FLIP to the next station. Ensuring that you’ll be playing a song if they FLIP from your competitor’s commercial break can add up to extra credit.

If we believe Nielsen citing shorter attention spans as a justification supporting the new three-minute threshold, then shorter is better, right? We’ll recommend experimenting with three shorter breaks in a low PUMM hour. If shorter is better, shorter spot breaks should be better (in theory) – and they’d certainly be better for clients. If the experiment shows promising results, have a plan to widen the experiment.

It’s also a reminder to review station imaging to change out long pieces. With less than two weeks until the book, you should audit everything you’re playing if you haven’t done so recently. Is every piece great? Memorable? Worth the airtime? Today’s programmers have a lot of plates spinning and it’s easy to lose track.

Maximizing listening occasions is important in this new environment. Very time-specific appointments can work well in the morning and at key times across the day. Wider appointments reminding listeners to tune back in during the workday, on the ride home, as the soundtrack to the weekend have no downside can reinforce the station’s branding and stationality when they’re done well.

There’s lots of experimentation to be done to learn how to maximize ratings with the new three-minute rule in effect with PPM. Next week, we’ll look at contesting for the new Nielsen environments.

The Spring Book is less than two weeks away. Whether it’s a last-minute music test or a tightly targeted digital marketing campaign, NuVoodoo would love to help your stations stay ahead of the competition. An email to tellmemore@nuvoodoo.com will get quick attention from the right member of our team.

Additionally, NuVoodoo marketing guru Mike O’Connor is publishing important marketing insights from our latest general study, NuVoodoo Media and Marketing Study 25, twice every week at nuvoodoo.com/articles.