What Is It?

The invention of INX tests came about by melding two different ways of doing music testing.

"Passive" Testing

The first is what most of our clients have had us do, which is to research the "passive" audience... people who we contact completely at random all over the metro area the way Arbitron does its ratings. These people are called by us "out of the blue". They didn't volunteer to take the test; they were just selected from the full market population of people whose preferred format is AC or Country or CHR, or whatever we're after (with all the usual specific specs for age-range, sex, etc.)

Now, the positives of testing "Passives" this way are two:

1. It shows you the music tastes of the full market potential audience for the given format... the tastes of the natural target market-wide. Because of this, it keeps your music aligned, as it should be, for maximum cume potential to the format.
2. If you did music testing using mostly all P-1's to your station, the tests can yield results that are "myopic" ... always reflecting what your core listeners want, which may be (and usually are) different from the full market's musical preferences for your format. Testing of the "Passives" across the whole market prevents this.

"Active" Testing

The other type of testing we do for some stations is surveying the Active core of the radio station... people who are not only P-1 to the station but who actively want to take the test and, when asked, actively volunteer to do it. What are the positives about this type of testing? There are three:

1. These are active core who really love the music... their scores for songs are a lot higher, on average, than the scores that Passives give (if you've been seeing your music scores going down in the testing you do, you'd love these scores!). And, Arbitron analysis indicates that, regardless of a station's format, their core P-1's give that station about 75% of its listening credit in Arbitron. So the opinions of core people - particularly active core -- are pretty important.
2. Making the core happy - the people who you actually have listening and who may get a diary - has direct positive impact on TSL with the people you have listening now.
3. The active core is the most sensitive to song overplay. When a record is tired, you see it first in the votes of the "actives".

Of course, the downside to doing an all "Active Core" test is that it can lead to the myopia we mentioned above (Passive testing, point #2). In it's worst excesses, testing nothing but core can create a "spiral" effect. For example, if you were a classic rocker whose core listeners leaned "harder" in their music tastes than the full market potential audience (which is pretty typical) and you tested nothing but active core, the resultant music would naturally make the station sound "hard." As a result it might attract a smaller audience of harder classic rock fans. The next test you did with the remaining core might, therefore, get even harder, etc.

Stations that saw the benefit of surveying active core, therefore, would always mix some active core and some non-core to make sure the overall scores didn't create a spiral. This is fine, but it misses the "power of both."

The "Power of Both"

The INX test does something that hasn't been done. It surveys the Passives as one survey and the Actives as another and gives you a large sample of BOTH Passive and Actives independently in the same test. All people in the test - whether Passive or Active core - listen to the same songs. They are all recruited with the same rigorous screening requirements. But now you can see their votes on songs not as a melded group of 80 or 100 people, but as a large group of Passives and a large group of Actives independently. It has enough people on each side of the equation that you have good statistical reliability to know what each separate group feels (both Passives and Actives).

Why is this so powerful?

1. When you have reliable Passive and Active information separately, you get the benefits of both forms of testing that we listed above.
2. Your power records can be those that are great with both important constituencies, so they are true "superpowers."
3. With your "Secondary" songs, you can easily code songs so that you know (a) which look good to both Passives and Actives, (b) which are really Passive favorites and not so hot among Actives, and (c) which are really Active favorites and not so hot among Passives. Then you can control your music play so that you don't get two "Passive Leaning" songs too close together or two "Active Leaning" songs too close together.

The result is one awesome sounding radio station that is machined to turn on both the Passive and Active listeners all the time.

Want to See It?

We call this approach - which gives you the "power of both" - TargetPerfect^TM Analysis. You'll only find it in an INX test.

Would you like to see what it looks like yourself? We'd be happy to send you free a sample of the test output that will show you how easy it is to visually see - point blank - which songs turn on Passives, which turn on Actives, and which don't. We won't give you all the cross tabs and trending information we normally supply clients with their tests... just a simple layout of the basic TargetPerfect columns that you will be able to read and understand instantly.

To get this free sample, just fill out our contact form. Be sure to indicate in the comment area that you would like a sample of the INX and whether you'd like it in color hard-copy paper form or emailed as an Excel file.