Nielsen, Katz Partner For Voter Ratings

Nielsen announced Tuesday that Katz Radio Group, the largest radio representation company in America, has signed an agreement to license Nielsen's Voter Ratings service for all 48 radio Portable People Meter (PPM) markets.

Nielsen's Voter Ratings service will provide Katz with deeper understanding of how radio reaches voters with specific political views while strengthening its commercial inventory to political campaigns.

The service combines Nielsen Audio's PPM data with key voter categories. These new insights, broken out by political views among Democrats, Republicans, independents and unregistered adults, will help Katz sell stations' ability to deliver voters to political campaigns more effectively, gaining more political ad dollars. Nielsen provides political ratings in the top 48 audio metros and the top 56 television designated market areas (DMAs) with reporting at the station and daypart levels.

'Radio's ability to meaningfully connect with the American electorate has been under-leveraged in the political advertising sector,' said Stacey Lynn Schulman, executive vice president of strategy and analytics at Katz Media Group. 'Layering our listeners' passions with Nielsen's advanced political targeting provides candidates with an exciting new opportunity to engage voters in 2016.'

Pierre Bouvard

Pierre Bouvard, chief marketing officer at Cumulus | Westwood One commented, 'Recently during Advertising Week, Jim Stengel, the former CEO of Procter & Gamble, said: 'Marketing in the modern world simply will not work without data.' Today, Katz and the American radio industry boldly launch a powerful data-driven voter-targeting platform. Adults 25-54 is not a demographic, it's a family reunion. These 10 political segments, based on actual voter behavior, are far more precise than broad age and sex demographics. Campaigns can now find their voter targets on the right radio format, station and dayparts.'

'Political data and insights are critical in demonstrating radio's capabilities to help the industry gain its share of campaign ad dollars,' said Radha Subramanyam, iHeartMedia's president of insights, research and data analytics. 'Nielsen data is also one of the key elements powering the iHeartMedia 'AuDiO' optimization tool, which launched last year and enables us to precisely target key voter segments nationwide.'

'All politics are local and this election season everyone is looking to maximize their political ad dollars by reaching the right voters at the right time,' said Matt O'Grady, executive vice president and managing director for local media at Nielsen. 'Using Nielsen's Voter Ratings solution, our clients can more effectively sell their stations by providing a comprehensive and precise view of which key voters segments are listening.'