Westwood One Blog Explores Media Reach

The latest Westwood One blog looks at propositions offered by major media and how they each perform against their promises. Though TV, magazines, digital video, digital display, billboard advertising, and Pandora are all facing challenges in measuring their audiences, AM/FM radio continues to deliver. AM/FM radio ads are heard.

Here's how these media are doing with their audience deliveries.

• 61% of the time, TV commercial audiences do not see the ads. TV audiences are multitasking on their phones or tablets or not even in the room when the TV is on.
• Magazine ad exposure is 30% lower than TV. Print readership faces inflation. Readers don’t turn every single page and don’t see every ad.
• Few online video ads are deemed viewable by the world’s largest ad agency. Few video ads on Facebook and Twitter meet the standards of a major media agency. When they are seen, video ads risk being associated with damaging content.
• Half of digital ads aren’t seen. Thanks to bots and other forms of invalid traffic, digital ad impressions can’t have an impact on true audiences.
• Less than half of adults have seen billboard advertising in the last 30 days. Outdoor audience measurement services like Geopath continue to work on developing “likelihood to see” factors to determine the effectiveness of billboards.
• Pandora suffers from “empty room syndrome.” The service knows that their ads are on but they have no idea if anyone is actually listening.

 The Portable People Meter, AM/FM radio’s audience measurement system, delivers by hearing what the consumer hears. While other media measurement over-count and inflate audiences, advertisers can depend on radio measurement as the direct link between media spending and consumer exposure.