People meters not accurate?

[InTIMadate]

Told you the PPM was junk research. The trades today are full of stories about how Arbitron has sold radio a stinky pile of garbage.
Beware the board posters here that are in Arbitron's pocket. They will fill your head and mouth with false tales and false facts about PPM.

I welcome a congressional investigation where Arbitron has to expose their dealing with the Media Rating Council. There’s something wrong with their methodology. There’s precedent for such a request since Congress quizzed Nielsen about its Local People Meter. It's time to expose the facts to the light and find out how ugly this baby really is.

How did our radio leaders let Chuck DuCoty end up being our voice with Arbitron as the leader of the Arbitron Advisory Council? He's the guy that took Q101 Chicago from billing $23 Mil to $16 Mil. He's lucky to have a job in Cedar Rapids. No wonder this is so screwed up.

Arbitron is on the ropes. It's time to give them a swift kick and teach them the meaning of the word "Respect" in order to protect radio from their heavy-handed, monopoly robber-baron efforts.

 

[davideduardo]

Told you the PPM was junk research. The trades today are full of stories about how Arbitron is on the ropes for selling radio their smoke and mirrors. Beware the board posters here that are in Arbitron's pocket. They will fill your head and mouth with false tales and false facts about PPM. This is not about how "radio should be supporting PPM." It's how Arbitron should come clean and improve their sample before selling it at a premium as fact.

There are no mirrors and no smoke. Arbitron simply could not get the sample proportional and the cells at the right level. Nobody has done a panel synidcated radio survey before, and the problems of panel recruitment and maintenance have been shown to Arbitron's dismay.

The industry is working to make sure that the sample is correct in size and proportional in every cell on the stratification variables. Most of us think this will happen, and everyone will be satisfied if not happy with the results.

I welcome the coming congressional investigation where Arbitron will have to expose their dealing with the Media Rating Council.

There is no congressional investigation. NABOB suggested one might be appropriate, as some broadcasters did with the Nielsen LPM, as you state. But, so far, no hearing or action has been scheduled. If the system is correct and transparent (the job of the MRC) then there will be no issues.

There’s something wrong with their methodology.

There is nothing wrong with the methodology, there is a problem with achieving a full and proporitonal panel.

 

[InTIMadate]

Nothing wrong?

Check out this excerpt from the congressional report:

In testimony, NABOB Executive Dir./General Counsel JIM WINSTON asked the House subcommittee to force ARBITRON and the MRC to make public the status of their review, as well as documents, meeting minutes and communications between the MRC and ARBITRON.

Asked WINSTON, "Please investigate ARBITRON's new PORTABLE PEOPLE METER Audience Measurement system, because it appears that within its design is a critical flaw in the gathering and processing of the audience data, which has resulted in a clear bias against the reporting of minority audiences. That bias is compounded by ARBITRON's failure to implement the PPM service in the manner in which ARBITRON committed that it would. Initial results from the PPM measurements have shown such huge rating declines for stations serving Black and Hispanic audiences that the financial survival of these stations would be at stake if ARBITRON were to implement PPM across the nation in the form it has been initially introduced. As it stands today, PPM is a greater threat to the survival of minority-owned media than even the FCC's threatened ownership rule changes."

 

[davideduardo]

Nothing wrong?

Any research has two components, design and implementation. There is nothing wrong with the PPM desgn, but the implemenntation is defective as the objectives of the design are not being met.

Asked WINSTON, "Please investigate ARBITRON's new PORTABLE PEOPLE METER Audience Measurement system, because it appears that within its design is a critical flaw in the gathering and processing of the audience data, which has resulted in a clear bias against the reporting of minority audiences. That bias is compounded by ARBITRON's failure to implement the PPM service in the manner in which ARBITRON committed that it would. Initial results from the PPM measurements have shown such huge rating declines for stations serving Black and Hispanic audiences that the financial survival of these stations would be at stake if ARBITRON were to implement PPM across the nation in the form it has been initially introduced. As it stands today, PPM is a greater threat to the survival of minority-owned media than even the FCC's threatened ownership rule changes."

There is a bit of a confusion of terms here. The design of the survey establishes a panel with 100% proportionality to the market on many variables. The "test data" in New York did not meet the design specifications on proportionality, and Arbitron accepted that they could not meet same by the January release of currency data, so they stopped the NY rollout until they figure out how to fix the panel size and proportionality to match the design.

It's important to note that no currency data in NY was ever released for the PPM.