Too late for some

Do you know Nate Silver? He’s not a radio guy. He developed a system built on statistical data that could predict individual performance for baseball players and was sometimes featured on ESPN TV.

He correctly predicted the outcomes in 49 or the 50 US states in the 2008 Presidential election, after which TIME named him one of The World’s 100 Most Influential People.

So you might be interested in his take on Nielsen, PPM, and Voltair: Did Nielsen Kill The Radio Star?

He doesn’t have a dog in this fight which enhances his credibility.

I was out of the country during the most recent NAB so I wasn’t able to attend the session featuring both Nielsen and Voltair executives, but I understand from others that it was, typically, frustrating.

I’m not sure how we got here, but I think we need to move. Any place would be better than here, I think.

Facebook or Google wouldn’t sit politely if an outside measurement organization, which charged them a fortune, underrepresented user numbers and impact. Not if it negatively impacted their revenue!

Nielsen should work for us, not the other way around.

Nielsen should make selling spots on your station easier, not harder.

It should add credibility to your audience data, not weaken those efforts.

It should add to market stability and improve confidence in your station’s story to advertisers, not the opposite.

And it should be affordable enough so that it doesn’t cause cut-backs in staffing, marketing and promotion within stations.

This effort is going to have to be led by the biggest radio companies, as well as the NAB and RAB.

We have got to fix this, and soon, because lives have already been ruined and revenues damaged.

It’s already to late for too many.