Fall Book

[Monitor]

Cumulus did not subscribe to Flint and Saginaw-BayCity-Midland Nielsen reports. They join MacDonald in not buying books. That makes Inside Radio report on the Fall book irrelevant without some dominant stations listed from those companies. The question becomes how much longer will Nielsen do sampling of those markets, and what will be the cost to remaining subscribers if they continue sampling those markets?

[radio_sparty]

As mentioned in previous threads, Cumulus is in the middle of a lawsuit with Nielsen. I expect them to return when their dispute is resolved.

[MWmetalhead]

I agree; these big broadcasters (such as Cumulus) almost always come crawling back to Nielsen after a spat.

The MacDonald stations in the Tri-Cities and Lansing haven't subscribed in many years. Perhaps they are not as dependent on agency buys? I'm not sure. Seems to me being unable to use Nielsen data for sales purposes would be disadvantageous to a station such as 98 KCQ, which has formidable in-format competition. I wonder if MacDonald has other means of collecting FM listenership statistics?

[craigrussell100]

"Perhaps they are not as dependent on agency buys? I'm not sure. Seems to me being unable to use Nielsen data for sales purposes would be disadvantageous to a station such as 98 KCQ, which has formidable in-format competition."

Agencies still have access to the numbers, including stations who don't buy...they are still represented. MacDonalds cant use the info for THEIR sales purposes, but the agencies know exactly what's going on, and buy accordingly.

[MWmetalhead]

Excellent info; thank you!