Time spent listening (TSL) is one of the measurements surveyed by
Nielsen Audio
Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by merging ...
in determining ratings for radio stations in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. It is the equivalent of Average
Time Exposed (ATE), Daily or Weekly.
TSL is defined as the amount of time the average listener surveyed spent listening to each radio station at one time, before changing the station or turning it off. Alternately, it is an estimate of how long the average panelist (listener) was exposed to a particular station or stations for a specific time period.
TSL trends are used in conjunction with
AQH share AQH Share is a statistic that measures broadcast radio listenership. Definition
AQH is an abbreviation for Average Quarter-Hour Persons (AQH Persons), defined by Arbitron (now referred to as Nielsen Audio) as the average number of persons listeni ...
("AQH") to evaluate listenership to a station. In some radio formats, a station with low AQH (number of listeners) but high TSL is considered more attractive to advertisers than a high AQH / low TSL station, because the station's listeners are more likely to stick with the station through commercial breaks and hear the paid advertisements.
Radio broadcasting
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