1st of 5 said:
Last week, I was chosen to participate in an Arbitron radio/tv survey. I thought I would be asked 100s of questions about my radio/tv listening/viewing habits, favorites, etc... But, no. Just 3 lousy questions. Did I listen to the radio today, (the survey took place about 3PM), what station did I listen to during said time period, and what age bracket did I fit into. I think the age thing torpedoed any chances for me to relay my radio preferences, as well as the query about any under age brats in the household, (0). "Thank you very much for participating, small cash gift", blah, blah, blah. It seems to me that since I don't wear my pants around my ankles, covered in fishhooks and ink smears and don't assault my ears with that jungle thumping obscene 21st century beatnik ranting, they didn't want to hear from me. Has anyone else taken part in this Arbitron sham? No wonder radio sucks the way it does.
Did the caller say specifically that they were calling from "Arbitron, the company that does radio ratings" (or similar) or was the call generic? If generic, it was not Arbitron.
Arbitron does not survey TV (although the PPM can measure it) in the sense that they don't have a syndicated TV ratings service and do not issue TV ratings. In the diary, TV viewing is not measured at all nor asked about. If the call mentioned TV, it was likely not from Arbitron.
This is not a sham, as you did not participate in an Arbitron survey itself unless you agreed to have diaries mailed to you or agreed to become a metered household so you could have meters, docks and training arranged for.
In diary markets, Arbitron has used prescreening call to determine disposition to becoming a full participant and to verify a phone as being active and in a dwelling unit. The questions about radio that they ask are not tabulated or used in any form for the radio ratings... they are simply intended to make it seem that they are interested in your opinion, something that increases response rates if you are later asked to be in the real ratings survey or panel.
Were you to be part of the survey process, and if you are in the Austin or SA metros, you would be in PPM markets now (Austin goes live with test data in 5 weeks) and Arbitron is recruiting PPM households; any diary recruits will probably have ended in the next week or two. SA is pure PPM.
In the case of PPM, you would be asked about family size, ages, gender, income, TV sets, etc. And you would be asked if all members of the household would participate if you were favorable to being a panel family / dwelling unit. You would not be asked about stations or dayparts, as Arbitron collects no ratings data on the phone.
www.arbitron.com has a section on questions that a participant might want to ask and you can review that.
