Nielsen will discontinue its radio ratings service in seven diary markets effective with the start of the spring 2023 survey. The radio metros being cancelled are Abilene, TX; Elmira-Corning, NY; Florence-Muscle Shoals, AL; Lake Charles, LA; Olean, NY; Rapid City-Spearfish, SD; and Wichita Falls, TX.
Nielsen informed clients of the cancelled markets in a product notification Wednesday.
Consistent with its policy regarding cancelled Metros, subscribers in the affected markets must stop using audience estimates for the markets as of Tuesday, Aug. 1. The reason for that, Nielsen says, is that “Canceled Radio Metros may contain outdated (stale) data that are no longer current.”
The seven markets are the first batch of cancelled radio metros since Nielsen pulled out of nine markets effective with the Spring 2000 survey. Those markets were Battle Creek, MI; Bend, OR; Billings, MT; Grand Junction, CO; New Bedford-Fall River, MA; Texarkana, TX-AR; Tri-Cities, WA (Richland-Kennewick-Pasco); Twin Falls-Sun Valley, ID; and Yakima, WA.
The spring 2020 market cancellations came three weeks after Nielsen announced a cost savings plan to reduce the measurement giant’s global workforce by about 3,500 employees and deliver roughly $250 million in annual savings.
Wednesday’s client product notification didn’t give a reason for the cancellations. However, when it ended service in nine metros three years ago, it provided this explanation: “If the audio marketplace in select markets cannot financially support measurement, we discontinue producing our syndicated market report in those markets. That is just business as usual, the typical expansion and contraction of our rated audio market list, which is the case with these nine markets."
In the past seven years, Nielsen has cancelled 30 radio metros.
While it will no longer provide audiences estimate for the seven newly canceled radio metros, Nielsen says it will continue to “place diaries in a cancelled Metro’s counties for its Nationwide, NRD, RADAR, and Radio County Coverage services. Nielsen Audio may also continue measurement of a cancelled Metro’s counties as part of the TSA or DMA of another nearby Metro. As a result, the release of these audience estimates supersedes the data of the cancelled Radio Metro.”