With radio and television hosts, even online producers, being fired or suspended over questionable comments made on-air and online, there’s been a lot of talk lately as to “where is the line?”

What is considered acceptable, edgy, or controversial commentary? This debate has come into question as hosts and producers are under greater scrutiny for what they say on-air and post on the station's website.

By Randy Lane

The sale of WABB-FM/Mobile not only represents the end of a 50 year era for a legendary Top 40 radio station. In many ways, it symbolizes the end of radio’s golden age.

Bernie Dittman, WABB’s colorful owner who passed in 2006, is surely wearing both a sad and happy face today. Sad that the station he built with unmatched passion is disappearing. Happy that it was never sold to a major commercial company. WABB started and ended as a local, family owned station. WABB has been acquired by EMF and will become a Pop Christian station March 1st.

With new social networks popping up daily, it’s easy to tune them out. However, there is one newbie you can’t ignore, and that’s Pinterest.  

What is Pinterest?

It’s a virtual pinboard that allows you to organize and share (or “pin”) things you find on the web. Common uses for Pinterest include wedding planning, home decorating, fashion, and cooking. It’s social because other pinners can comment, like, or repin your pins.

by Randy Lane, Stan Main, Angela Perelli and Stephanie Winans

Did you know that in order for your morning show podcast to get credit with Arbitron, the podcast (if you post a whole hour or whole show) has to contain 100% of the broadcast audio including commercials?  We didn’t either.

Not only are you not getting any ratings value if you’re posting your entire show online; you could potentially be losing ratings by providing your morning show on-demand, commercial free.

Why might you still want to do a full podcast even without ratings credit?

• To please the P1s who can’t listen to the entire show live by providing it on demand

• To drive traffic and increase page views and hits to your website

• To sell ads and/or sponsorships of the podcast page on the website

Here are five things you can do to get ratings credit for podcasts:

1. Take short excerpts of content (at least five minutes; less than 10 minutes) from the encoded broadcast (not from the stream). You can have a great segment of the show that leads up to or follows commercials (minus the commercials) as your podcast.

Ratings Tip: The podcast has to be at least five minutes long to get credit for a quarter-hour in Arbitron.

Tech Tip: Cut the podcast down to mono to reduce the file size by 50%. Since these segments will likely be talk, there is no need for them to be in stereo.

Upside: Short podcasts enable listeners to download and forward them to friends as part of your viral marketing strategy.

2. Share exceptional segments with your fan base via social networks and loyal listener email. Since P1 listeners tend to be active on station online platforms, the podcast will likely get some click-throughs, and we can only hope that a few of those listeners will have a meter.

3.  Stress the urgency of listening to the podcast within 24 hours, because Arbitron tallies the data daily. If someone listens to that A-list interview or compelling segment next week, you do not get credit. Eric Rowe, from the Roula & Ryan Show, KRBE/Houston, swears that their strategy of posting the daily War of the Roses segment “only until midnight” has increased ratings. Check out more on this strategy here.

4. Your podcast must be encoded with the broadcast encoder. Arbitron provides a separate encoder for your radio station’s stream and the station’s broadcast. If your podcast is coded with your station’s stream encoder or no encoder, you won’t get credit.

5. Be careful about airing an excerpt from another radio show. For example, If Rush Limbaugh goes on a controversial rant and you rebroadcast it, a PPM panelist’s meter will likely pick up two codes and you are likely to lose credit for listening.

If you are in a diary market, here’s what you need to know:

• If a listener writes in their diary they listened to your station without noting it was a podcast or stream, you will get credit in Arbitron. At present, the diary only has a time entry and does not ask the diary keeper to specify if the listening took place on the station broadcast, internet stream or from a podcast.

• If the diary keeper writes down your website, e.g. “wabb.com,” or the name of your podcast, “QTip and Nick’s podcast” for example, you will not get credit for the listening.

KEEP IN MIND: Streaming and podcasting continue to comprise less than 1% of listening according to the latest study by Arbitron.


If you have questions about any of this information, read Arbitron’s PPM Policy Brief on Time-Shifted Listening here or contact us.

If you're in radio in Canada, stay tuned for an article on podcasting and BBM.

You have probably seen this viral video of Kristen Bell on Ellen from earlier this week. (If not, read no farther. Watch it here. We’ll wait…)

At first glance, you might think she’s cute and a little odd with that sloth obsession of hers. But break down the segment and it’s a brilliant example of character and storytelling.