Re: Arbitron misinterpretation and misunderstanding.
David really speaks the Arbitron rep Spin very well. Too bad you've drunk the Kool Aid to the point that you cannot see how badly flawed the system is.
You are very right about their methodology, however it is a flawed methodology, and you cannot cannot escape the fact that there is significant social engineering going on when only special groups are given additional incentives to participate. Then once they do, they are counted in special ways that always enhance two formats. Black and Spanish.
Spin away.
> > Very tru
e. I had the same experience in a market that is
> > 40% hispanic. In a certain demo where 70 diaries were
> > returned, 60 of the 70 were from hispanic households. And
>
> > there were many more examples like this.
>
> In every case, the diaries returned will be wieghted to
> achieve proportionality. The Hispanic diaries will be
> weighted down, and the "other" diaries weighted up.
>
> > We even had a few
> > demos where we couldn't even run a ranker for anglos, and
> > these were your bread and butter key demos.
>
> Of course, you want to blame Arbitron. Arbitron will
> increase sample size to avoid this kind of thing if the
> subscribers will pay for it. Since a reduction by half of
> the margin of error requires 4 times the sample, usually the
> stations will not pay.
>
> You get what you pay for. If the sample is not big enough,
> it is not Arbitron's fault that this stuff happens. If a
> key cell only has 70 diaries, the sample is woefully small.
>
>
> > We'd get an
> > error message that said "not enough data" because they
> > didn't collect enough diaries.
>
> This is pretty common, even in the larger markets. It does
> not mean they did not "collect enough diaries." The
> collected the number of diaries the subscribers paid for.
> But in some cells, that sample does not allow very deep
> breaks... such as a narrow demo in one sex and one ethnicity
> in one daypart. If you look at LA, Hispanic females 55-64,
> Saturday, 7-mid, you get the message. LA has 7,500 diaries.
> You can not get certain data if you try to slice it too
> thin. It is not a defect of data collection... it is the
> cosequence of the agreed on sample size.
>
> > And this is a market that's
> > 60% Anglo according to Arbitron.
>
> Arbitron does not use the term "anglo" anywhere.
> Non-Hispanics and non-Blacks are in the "other" category
> which includes Asians, non-Hiispanic whites and anything
> elese that does nto fit the first two.
>
> > When I asked why they
> > didn't just weight the anglo diaries as they've done with
> > black and hispanic diaries when this problem has come up
> (I
> > knew what they'd say, but it was fun to watch them
> > backpedal)...well, let's just say the spin machine was in
> > full effect.
>
> The will not give an estimate if there is not a minimum
> number of diaries with data in the cell. That is done
> pre-weighting. If there are not enough, you get the error
> message. It is really enormously simple.
> >
> > Arbitron is supposed to deliver a product where the
> > percentages of the sample reflect the percentages of the
> > market, but this has not been the case where I am for
> quite
> > some time.
>
> What is you PPDV? Did you market accept the sample increas
> initiatives of abuout 5 years ago?
>
> > If you have a low return for a certain group,
> > which is not some new issue by the way, then you weight
> the
> > diaries you do get so you can estimate the number. But
> for
> > some strange reason that methodology doesn't seem to apply
>
> > to anglos. Or if it does them I'm not aware of it. We're
>
> > told basically the same thing when you press them.
>
> It applies to every cell. And the data on sample and
> wighting is in the front of every book, and in every trend
> download if you are a continuous measurement market.
>
> You might download and read the Pueple Book about
> methodology, as some of these issues are very clearly
> explained there.
>