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.