Information Use in Broadcasting

Information Use in Broadcasting

By Phil Newmark

CIS/207

Mar 09, 2015

Bob Juszynski

Information Use in Broadcasting

In the old world of network radio broadcasting, information has been key to every facet of the business from advertising revenue to the building of affiliate stations. Modern radio networks have a distinct advantage with current technology to target their audience better, which increases the revenue from advertisers and builds a network of stations that carry these radio programs. By utilizing information within a radio network, and from external sources, the job of marketing radio programs on a national level has been steady in the past few years but it has also given rise to a new digital media as.

The Portable People Meter and Ratings

The driving force for any broadcast medium is the number of people who listen or view a program, referred to as a shows ratings. This information is highly valuable to any broadcasting organization as it directly relates to the cost a commercial is sold for. The current way this information is collected is the use of the PPM, which monitors what people are listening to all day long. Information gathered from these devices includes radio and TV viewing habits, time spent listening, and time frames engaged by the user. This information is consolidated into a report for the radio/TV station and is broken down into details that are used by the sales staff as well as the programming staff and management. The sales teams can identify high listening times of the day in order to raise the cost of commercials they sell to advertisers or lower the cost of times with lower listenership (Barwise & Ehrenberg, 1988). The programming staff can see what personalities click with their respective audiences by seeing how long someone listens to specific personalities, in some cases data is received fast enough to tell if a newscast is covering a subject that people are interested in and changes can be...