I could be wrong, but I think I see a line of 6,603 standing dominoes with a forefinger poised to flick the first domino.

Take a step back, I’ll give you some facts, and then we’ll return to the dominoes.

There are 6,602 FM radio stations in America, 597 FM stations in Canada, and 234 in Australia on which you can air radio ads for local businesses. These radio stations are producing miraculous results for business owners who hire great ad writers to enchant the audience and savvy media buyers to schedule those ads to air with correct repetition 52 weeks a year.

Sadly, most business owners do exactly the wrong thing. They run short schedules to “test the waters,” and then announce, “I tried radio and it didn’t work.”

ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX are producing miraculous results for business owners who hire great ad writers to enchant the audience and savvy media buyers to schedule those ads to air with correct repetition 52 weeks a year.

Sadly, most business owners do exactly the wrong thing. They run short schedules to “test the waters,” and then announce, “I tried television and TV didn’t work.”

Did you notice the similarity that united those two easily proven facts?

Anyone who believes that online media has made mass media obsolete is comically delusional. I never waste time attempting to correct these people.

We will now return to the dominoes.

Nielsen Audio is the media measurement company that allows savvy media buyers to create miraculous radio schedules. Without Nielsen, they are flying blind without instruments and very likely to crash their flying machines.
Cumulus owns multiple radio stations in 84 important cities in the U.S. Their current financial difficulties make it impossible for them to pay Nielsen for their measurement services.
Nielsen has responded by announcing that Cumulus radio stations will no longer be measured or listed in future ratings reports.
The resulting invisibility of those stations will cripple even the savviest media buyers.
An emerging measurement system, DTS AutoStage, shows promise but I remain convinced that it will be at least a few more years before it has sufficient breadth of data to replace Nielsen.

The finger of Nielsen is flicking the domino that will knock over the other 6,602 dominoes in the chain that will ultimately result in the demise of Nielsen.

I have no way of knowing whether or not Nielsen realizes that.

Nielsen was purchased by private equity on October 11, 2022, less than 4 years ago.

Things are looking good for ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX.

Roy H. Williams

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