Media agencies have based their Montreal television buys on BBM’s Personal People Meter (PPM) data for almost two years and now radio ad purchases may not be far behind. Simultaneous to the gathering of TV data, the PPM has been capturing radio listening of 22 radio stations (English and French, Canadian and U.S.) that have encoded their signals to take part in this test. The Montreal stations taking part account for more than 92% of all radio listening in the Montreal area.

On Tuesday in Montreal, Pat Pellegrini, VP research for BBM Canada, and Ken Purdye, a meter consultant with BBM, compared the diary and PPM results of radio measurement in the market for an international audience at the ARF/ESOMAR Worldwide Audience Measurement Conference.

BBM says the two measurement methods deliver similar estimates on audience shares but the PPM illustrates a clearer picture of the what, when, and where of radio listening. For example, the PPM shows higher daily reach, 82% average compared to the diary’s 69% average, and less listening per listener. The fall 2004 radio diary reported that respondents listened to radio for 2.6 hours per day while the PPM panel results were 2.0 hours a day.

The morning and afternoon drive times have traditionally been thought to be prime listening times but the PPM indicates that evening and weekend listening are of far greater importance. Diaries produce higher audience numbers during the drive times than the PPM. In addition, there is disparity in the reporting on listening on the days of the week. Diaries show a decline in listening as the work week progresses while PPMs report consistent levels of listening each day with slight increases on Thursday and Friday. Both systems show less listening on weekends although the drop-off is less pronounced with PPMs.

Morning drive time audiences are 5% less with PPMs, 21% share compared to 26% with diaries. For the other dayparts, the results were afternoon drive time, 13% share of listening (PPM) 14% (diary); evenings 10% share (PPM) 8% (diary); and weekends, 24% share (PPM) 9% (diary). The daypart between the two drive times captured 33% share of listening through both methods.

Who is listening and what they are listening to is also different. PPM results reveal that radio audiences are more masculine and younger than previously believed. Popular music stations are getting larger audience shares with the PPM while talk radio shares are smaller than diary reports. The PPM consistently shows larger male audiences – 2.9 hours per day versus 2.7 for the diary. The diaries show larger female audiences – 2.8 hours for the diary compared to 2.4 for PPMs.

Diaries also skew towards larger older audiences while the PPM reports younger. Teen listening is 50% higher with PPM measurement than with diaries. Conversely, the size of 65+ audiences is 20% higher with diaries than with the PPM.

With television audience measurement, BBM found that although the audience share of each TV station is almost identical with PPMs and set-top boxes, the amount of time spent watching TV is 12% higher with the PPM than with the other meters. Again PPMs show that some of the hard-to-reach groups such as younger demographics and light TV viewers are also watching more television than set-top boxes had reported.

The BBM Canada PPM TV panel in Quebec consists of about 550 French-language homes with 375 of them in the Montreal extended market area.