Media Monitors, the leader in broadcast and cable monitoring just released the results of a study on the stop set times of PPM stations. The study was conducted on data from July, 2010 and July, 2009 and shows a migration of starting times of many surveyed stations.
Philippe Generali, President and CEO of Media Monitors commented, “Compared to last year, twice as many stations in PPM markets are playing spots at :15. The first quarter hour however remains a traditional “sacred cow” where hardly any music station wants to be caught in a commercial break.”
Comparison of PPM and Non-PPM Music Stations July 5, 2010
As you can see in the graph, the non-PPM stations still focus their commercial breaks at :20 and :50, whereas PPM stations have made the move to clustering their spots around the :15 and :45 quarter-hours.
This is a comparison to one year ago, same days. It is clear, that Arbitron PPM™ stations have moved their stop breaks from last year.