On 25/01/2011 10:17 AM, scott wrote:
>>> Are you sure that is correct? It seems very odd that the song owners
>>> wouldn't charge more for stations that have higher audience figures. It
>>> would mean they'd have to charge an totally insignificant amount to the
>>> big stations in order for small ones to be financially possible.
>>
>> Well, since it's impossible to know how many people are listening at any
>> given instant in time, the price cannot possibly be determined by the
>> number of listeners.
>
> So you're not sure then :-)
>
> You can be sure how many people are listening at any given instant in
> time to within some confidence/accuracy levels. There are plenty of
> companies that deal with collecting such data (eg barb.co.uk does it for
> TV, I'm sure there are similar for radio). Why wouldn't the song owners
> use such figures for setting the prices?

I'm not saying they don't. I'm saying that the price is set by the 
*predicted* number of listeners, not the *actual* number, which could be 
arbitrarily different.

Still, I suppose there's nothing particularly unusual about that. My car 
insurance price is set by the *predicted* probability of me getting a 
cheaper quote from somebody else, not the *actual* probability of this.

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