CLAUDE E. HOOPER, (1898 - 1954), THE FATHER OF HOOPERATINGS.
HOOPER WAS NO EASY TARGET
When promotion-minded Claude Hooper dubbed his radio audience surveys Hooperatings in 1938, it made him famous. As leader of his company’s “Hooperites” and “Hooperettes” he never left the spotlight. It also made him the personified target of those who believed that ratings - his Hooperatings, in particular - were nothing more than the product of junk research that benefited low-class programs.
That was the case when Fred Allen, who continually disparaged ratings, told the press that he could invalidate Hooper’s methodology The comedian’s boast fell flat when he was unable to prove it. Then Allen reverted to the common complaint that ratings favored inferior programming. Hooper calmly replied that ratings reflected the quantity of programs’ listeners, not the quality of programs’ contents.
Allen took defeat good naturedly, saying later:
“The next time you see a radio comedian gray before his time, his cheeks sunken and his step halt, please understand that he isn’t dying. His wife hasn’t left him. His children aren’t sick. He isn’t going bankrupt. He’s been caught with his Hooperating down, that’s all.”
Joel Murcott, radio critic of The Hollywood Reporter, took his shot in December, 1946 - five months after Hooper bought the remnants of his crumbling arch-rival, The Cooperative Analysis of Broadcasting. Murcott wrote in the trade paper:
“ Hooper says that 92,550 homes are called each month in the Pacific web coverage area.
“…On a 30 day breakdown it gives about 3,000 calls daily on the entire Pacific Coast. That’s 108 calls per half hour period. The current report shows 35% average sets in use. That means less than 40 respondents giving the Pacific Coast pace for half-hour listening!
“…On that small a sample Mr. Hooper can get odds from any professional gambler that he will eventually hit a night when not one single respondent is listening to Fibber & Molly or Bob Hope.”
Hooper wasted no time to roar back in Time Magazine, “Falsification and oversimplification!” Then he settled down to pick Murcott’s argument apart:
In the first place, on the Coast we don’t make a report based on one broadcast because the sample is too small. We wait and make a monthly report, using the statistics on four broadcasts. In the second place, we don’t make the same number of calls every hour. We call somewhat more at night than during the day. At night we average 165 calls a half-hour - 660 a month on any show in the report.”
West Coast reports were also folded into the bi-weekly National Network Hooperatings which Hooper claimed were based on over 4.5 million calls annually.
Hooper may have seemed to be an easy target. But nobody ever came close to hitting the bullseye.
Copyright © 2015 Jim Ramsburg, Estero FL Email: tojimramsburg@gmail.com
