Nielsen’s Three-Minute Qualifier Increases Audience All Day In Key Demos.

There’s more good news from Nielsen’s January 2025 PPMs, the first to reflect the shift from a five- to a three-minute qualifier needed for quarter-hour credit, based on October 2024-to-January 2025 and year-over-year trends.

According to Westwood One’s analysis of audience data from all PPM markets except for yet-to-be-released West Palm Beach, as reported in its weekly blog, drive times and weekends show the greatest increases, while listeners overall are skewing younger, and total listening is up 3%.

“Nielsen’s three-minute qualifier modernization provides a significantly more comprehensive and realistic definition of AM/FM radio’s audience and their listening behavior,” Cumulus Media/Westwood One Audio Active Group Chief Insights Officer Pierre Bouvard says. “Nielsen found 23% of PPM listening occasions were three or four minutes. Under the old five-minute listening qualifier rule, none of this tuning would have received listening credit.”

A comparison to January 2024 PPM data shows all-day double-digit audience growth among persons 12+ and 24-54. For 12+, average quarter-hour increases range from 12%-16%, those 16% highs for weekday PM drive and weekends, while for 25-54s there are 10%-14% lifts, the 14% for weekday morning drive.

What explains the audience growth with Nielsen’s qualifier change? “[It’s] most likely because weekends and drive times have the highest proportion of in-car time spent where shorter occasions of listening are more common,” Bouvard says. “The nature of running errands, shopping, dropping kids off at school, and attending kids’ activities means shorter occasions of listening. These three- and four-minute occasions of listening are now being credited.”

Backing up Bouvard’s theory is Nielsen’s diary data showing that in-car listening represents 79% of weekend AM/FM radio time spent and 73% of drive time audiences, vs. 65% of working weekdays and 68% for full-week listening.

Comparing PPM audience composition for January 2025 vs. October 2024, AM/FM radio’s listening profile is skewing younger overall, with the largest growth for persons 25-54 and 18-49, and increases in every demographic except for persons 65+.

Combining Nielsen’s January 2025 PPM AQH audiences with diary audiences from its Spring 2024 Nationwide survey (as Fall 2024’s data is yet to be released) shows that with the three-minute qualifier change, persons 18-49 total U.S. AQH listening grew 2%, while persons 25-54 total U.S. AQH listening was up 3%.

Additionally, when compared to October 2024, AM/FM radio audience growth in the PPM markets has increased the proportion of top market listening. In January 2025, the PPM markets generated 38% of American persons 25-54 listening, vs. 36% for October.

The blog suggests several implications of the listening increases seen in the January 2025 data, one of which is projected increases in persons 18-49 and 25-54 average audience of AM/FM radio as a percentage of live+time-shifted TV. While the former demo will widen its lead over TV, first seen in 2022, the latter is expected to overtake TV this year.

From an advertising standpoint, the data suggests that 2025 post-buy analyses will overachieve 2024 media plans, and that AM/FM radio will experience reach growth in advertising schedules. “With PPM now reporting higher AM/FM radio reach levels, campaign reach will experience growth,” Bouvard says. “Since reach is the foundation of advertising effectiveness, this is a positive for AM/FM radio’s performance in media mix modeling analysis.”

The switch to a three-minute qualification should also make radio ads more effective, as stations increase the number of commercial breaks with shorter durations. “Since the introduction of the Portable Meter, most AM/FM radio stations schedule their two commercial breaks around 15 and 45 minutes past the hour,” Bouvard says. “This strategy was designed to maximize five-minute listening durations. With a three-minute quarter-hour qualification, stations can create more breaks of shorter duration. This will significantly benefit advertisers.”

Backing this up is a finding from a PPM study of nearly 18 million unique commercial breaks involving 62 million minutes of advertising — conducted by Nielsen, Media Monitors and Coleman Research — showing that the shorter the ad break, the greater the audience retention.

“Creating more ad breaks of shorter duration generates larger commercial audiences, [and] advertisers stand out more in shorter breaks,” Bouvard says. “Growing audience deliveries for AM/FM radio ads improve AM/FM radio’s performance in media mix modeling and marketing effectiveness studies.”