Radio stations ready for ratings revolution.[ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] MATT Mallon, general sales manager sales manager n → gerente m/f de ventas sales manager n → directeur commercial sales manager sale n → at radio station KABC-AM (790), is turning up the volume. The 40-year-old Mallon was recently named chairman of the Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, Broadcasters Association's general sales managers council. He'll be taking over at a particularly volatile time for L.A. radio. The most significant factor will be the shift by Arbitron, the company that tracks radio listeners' choices, to a Portable People Meter The Portable People Meter (sometimes mistakenly "Personal People Meter") or PPM, is a device developed by Arbitron to measure how many people are listening (or at least exposed) to individual radio stations and television stations, including cable TV. measurement gauge. The current ratings period is the last one in which listeners will provide a classic "diary," writing down what they listened to. The new system electronically tracks how many people are within range of the station's broadcast signal, whether they are really "listening," or just present. The ratings are crucial, of course. Advertising agencies base their decisions on where to put their clients' dollars based on those numbers. "We'll see if any station takes a truck with a microphone down to the beach to jack up their numbers," joked Mallon, who's confident the new system will work. "The agencies still want ears, and we can provide them." The next presidential election is likely to bring waves of political ads--and soon--according to Mallon. "With the primary in February, and both races wide open, the ads could start as early as December," he said. Mallon, who lives in Manhattan Beach Manhattan Beach, city (1990 pop. 32,063), Los Angeles co., S Calif., on Santa Monica Bay; inc. 1912. It is a residential and beach community with an oil refinery and nearby factories that produce transportation and electrical equipment, computers, and pottery. with his wife and two children, is confident that radio, particularly talk stations like KABC KABC Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children , will have a place in the new, Internet-dominated media landscape. "It may be streaming audio A one-way audio transmission over a data network. It is widely used on the Web as well as company networks to play audio clips and Internet radio. Computers in home networks stream audio (mostly music) to digital media hubs connected to home theaters. on the computer or a podcast (iPOD broadCAST) An audio broadcast that has been converted to an MP3 file or other audio file format for playback in a digital music player or computer. The "pod" in podcast was coined from "iPod," the predominant portable, digital music player, and although podcasts are , but there is always going to be a market for content that is local and relevant. It does put some pressure on us to be sharp and on-topic," he said. Todd Cunningham is the assistant managing editor of the Business Journal. He can be reached at tcunningham@labusinessjournal.com |
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