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Thursday, September 25, 2003
I'm a Statistic!
A few weeks back, I was contacted by Arbitron Ratings. I always dreamed about being selected by Arbitron Ratings so that I would have the power to influence the television viewing habits of millions of Americans.The great news was that they wanted my household to participate in their weekly ratings poll. The not so great news was that my family was selected for the radio ratings instead of television ratings. But, that was OK for me since I don't watch that much television anyway.
Each person in my household received a diary. The diary consists of a daily matrix that is broken down into 15-minute increments. We were instructed to fill in the appropriate blocks with the radio station number or call letters that we listened to during that time period.
For me that was a pretty easy task. I listen to talk radio and I usually leave any given station on for two to three hours at a time. My wife listens to only one radio station so that was easy for her too.
The kids were another story, however. Kids these days drive with one hand on the wheel and the other hand either contains a cell phone or it is connected to the radio. I've even seen where some kids have a hand on the wheel, a hand on the radio and the cell phone wedged between the ear and their shoulder. But that’s a topic for another time though.
The kids and I went to breakfast last Saturday morning. I tried to be a good dad and fill in the ratings diary. But with one hand on the scan button, I couldn't keep up with the changes. 88.1.. 89.7.. 93.1.. 93.5.. 95.9.. 96.1.. 96.3.. 98.5.. 99.5.. 100.3.. 100.7.. 102.7.. 104.3.. 105.7.. 106.5.. 107.3. And all of this before the car was put in Drive! As you can imagine, I finally gave up.
On our jaunt to the restaurant, we didn't hear a complete song and we heard mostly commercials, and only snippets at that.
After being a part of the mind numbing exposure of listening to 36 stations in four seconds, I began to think. Is it about radio personalities? Is it about which station is most popular? Is it about the music? I finally determined that it's not about any of that. It's really about a conspiracy of how kids can drive their parents crazy in the shortest period of time.
Posted by Life's Little Observer
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