So about two weeks ago, I'd been getting messages from the good folks at Arbitron, and they finally caught up with me a week ago. They talked about the system, I gave them some info, and I'm in for a week, starting today. They sent me the diary, the little survey on the back, some cash (new bills, even), the whole bit.
Yet I don't feel like I'm affecting anything.
See, in this market, there's the hip-hop station - and everyone else is playing for second. They say they're "number one with everybody" and they ARE. They've won the last two spring ratings books by four points. That's astronomical. The 500-pound gorilla down here is Equity Communications, and like any self-respecting radio conglomerate, they've got their hands in every genre.
I don't listen to the radio at home, partly because the reception is terrible. God alone knows what these walls are made of. I've usually got either some CDs playing or I'm listening to my MP3's on my MusicMatch jukebox. The only time I'll have the radio on is in my car. So this is going to be a very small sample.
We've got an independently owned rock station that's headquartered about a mile from work. Yes, it's as rare as you think it sounds. It actually plays stuff you wouldn't expect - you'll hear Philadelphia bands just as frequently as you would on the Philly stations. It has a reggae show on Sunday afternoons. It had a great book last fall, but fell back a bit in the spring. It's the other local station I listen to down here, so I'll try to give them a bump. Ratings talk in radio, and I figure every little bit helps.
2 comments:
How do you keep track of your favorites when you stopped doing a Top 10 like yours truly? Have you informed record companies and radio stations bribery gets them everywhere?
If you're asking in relation to this, I'm tracking stations, not individual songs. (And they give you cash to do this. Forgot to mention it.) If you're asking just in general, I pretty much just follow whatever I've downloaded.
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