Portable People Meters

[dfaulkner]

I don't know much about them. Didn't find much by Googling "PPM." I know they replaced the old diary system. Would like to learn more about them. Appreciate any insights anyone would like to share.

 

[davideduardo]

I don't know much about them. Didn't find much by Googling "PPM." I know they replaced the old diary system. Would like to learn more about them. Appreciate any insights anyone would like to share.

http://www.arbitron.com/portable_people_meters/home.htm for the PPM home

http://www.arbitron.com/portable_people_meters/ppm_service.htm?inframe for the explanation with embedded links.

The full explanation is there...

The Cliff's Notes version is:

A panel of households which represents, in miniature, the characteristics of the market on all key demos is selected. Those people may remain on panel up to two years if they continue to carry the meter. The meter detects what station the person who has it is hearing, and sends data about all listening back to Arbitron every day.

 

[DFW_Radio_2000]

Basically, every broadcast is encoded with data that the PPM picks up and stores until it's docked and sent back to Arbitron.

 

[Nightpattern]

Basically, every broadcast is encoded with data that the PPM picks up and stores until it's docked and sent back to Arbitron.

Stations now receive ratings results weekly. "Books" are now issued each month instead of quarterly.

 

[tubessoundbetter]

just think of it as information overkill, and more ammo for the boss to sack ya

 

[dfaulkner]

Thanks for the responses.

 

[radi0avenger]

What SUCKS is the amount of these things per market. Arbitron has very very few of these out, and that's why ratings are now all over the place. If ONE person carrying one gets stuck in an office with someone listening to station X all day for a week, that person's PPM no longer reports the station they ENJOY listening to, it's what's in the background. It could send one station into a tailspin. Obviously that's the point - what the person is hearing. But the demographics are SORELY under-represented. Especially minorities.

 

[peet]

The best analogy I could ever come up with when asked about PPM v Dairy methodology was, "It's like we sold a car with bad brakes and bought a car with bad steering".

They both have their pros/cons but really as measuring tools, its simply a wash.

PPM has proven to be good for owners and bad for talent.

 

[woodyrr]

The best analogy I could ever come up with when asked about PPM v Dairy methodology was, "It's like we sold a car with bad brakes and bought a car with bad steering".

<snip>

I've filled in a couple of diaries in my life and it's true that doing it is a hassle even for someone like me who is interested in participating. I have been wondering what to do if I'm ever asked to carry a PPM.

I listen to radio all day, but there is nothing for the PPM to "hear": the audio from the radio goes straight to a headset. All the PPM would be able to report is screaming power tools all day. What's worse, when I go to the bank, it will pick up whatever they're listening to that I'm barely aware of, if at all. At the end of the week, Arbitron will conclude that I listen for ten minutes, once a week, to an adult contemporary station. I couldn't screw up a written diary that bad if I tried.

 

[DFWPT]

I have been wondering what to do if I'm ever asked to carry a PPM.

If you are ever asked, please give it to me.

 

[Sgt. Hans G. Schultz]

The best analogy I could ever come up with when asked about PPM v Dairy methodology was, "It's like we sold a car with bad brakes and bought a car with bad steering".

<snip>

I've filled in a couple of diaries in my life and it's true that doing it is a hassle even for someone like me who is interested in participating. I have been wondering what to do if I'm ever asked to carry a PPM.

I listen to radio all day, but there is nothing for the PPM to "hear": the audio from the radio goes straight to a headset. All the PPM would be able to report is screaming power tools all day. What's worse, when I go to the bank, it will pick up whatever they're listening to that I'm barely aware of, if at all. At the end of the week, Arbitron will conclude that I listen for ten minutes, once a week, to an adult contemporary station. I couldn't screw up a written diary that bad if I tried.


The PPM "hears" the signal of the station to which the receiver is tuned, not the audio (or so they say).

 

[woodyrr]

As dfaulkner noted, there is not a lot of publicly available information about how PPMs work.

I was going on the Wikipedia (yeah, I know!) article which described two ways that were purportedly being studied for identifying stations. One was embedding the signal in the audio stream and using digital signal processing in the PPM to recover the embedded code. The alternate method was to use the principles of Psychacoustics to mask the code from the listener's perception. They both sound like pretty much the same idea to my ignorant mind. Both of these would require the PPM to "hear" the audio of the program to retrieve the code.

If the PPM does use some type of method to discern which of all of the thousands of RF signals passing through it is the one that a radio listener is listening to, that would be interesting. I don't, however, think that they work that way. The last time that I filled out a diary, Arbitron was interested in not only RF radio, but also internet and satellite. The first hurdle is that, except in the case of wifi, there is no signal being sent through the air for internet radio. From the information available, I have inferred that the PPM actually "listens" to the world around it with a microphone and when it detects a valid station id code, begins recording station ID and TSL. I'd really like to know the real story. Accepting a PPM and having it report incomplete information is just as damaging as falsifying diary entries.

FWIW here is the article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_People_Meter

 

[BBontheRadio]

From the information available, I have inferred that the PPM actually "listens" to the world around it with a microphone and when it detects a valid station id code, begins recording station ID and TSL.

That is correct.