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Groove1670
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I thought about this how do you get a "Tween" or teenager to keep up with the PPM meter assigned to them. How are "margins" of error calculated. Gee.. I have too much spare time. ;D
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musiconradio.com said:
Arbitron places meters in families or dwelling units. If any member of the family does not comply and carry, the entire family will be removed from the panel after Arbitron determines that they are not going to get compliance. So the family members most interested in getting points for rewards will try to get the errant member to carry the meter (which has a motion sensor which indicates compliance).
Margin of error is a mathematical equation based on population, sample size and the size of the measured audience for a station. Margins are, of course, higher for low rated stations. Arbitron has an error calculator on the website for subscribers.
Does that meter have a GPS? Or just a motion sensor? What about the stories of PPMs attached to ceiling fans, sitting in a bedroom with a radio on in the background?
SirRoxalot said:
There is no GPS as that would probably scare off half of the potential panelists as well as consume unholy amounts of power.
Supposedly the motion sensor data can eliminate non-human motion and thus the data obtained that way would be eliminated. Arbitron is very non-transparent on the technology, so I am not sure on that even though I have both and old model and a new generation PPM (both disabled, of course).
SirRoxalot said:
This would be very easy to detect with a motion detector, assuming that Arbitron thought about detecting such things.
PTBoardOp94 said:
All PPMs have motion detectors. They were put in principally to show when the meter had been undocked and was being carried, but could of course show other things as well.
It is bad enough that my cell phone leaves a record of were I am or least what cell I am in if no GPS. Sprint can trianglulate your location if you are in overlapping cells. I have watched too many "X Files" and I really do think I would never wear extra equipment that would record anything. I guess this does not bother the Facebook / social networking junkie but it is just "creepy" to me.
secondchoice said:
The only thing a PPM registers is the code broadcast by a radio station it "hears" and time stamps it. It does not record anything heard by the mike in the device... and the motion sensor just shows motion intervals, not location or distances moved or somesuch.
DavidEduardo said:
That is what they say. Has anyone taken one apart? I remember right before the first Gulf War the US government "accidentally" let a printer slip past the embargo. It had a nasty virus that messed up Saddam's computer network. The old Trojan horse story comes to mind.
DavidEduardo said:
That is what they say. Has anyone taken one apart? I remember right before the first Gulf War the US government "accidentally" let a printer slip past the embargo. It had a nasty virus that messed up Saddam's computer network. The old Trojan horse story comes to mind. I know I am just a little paranoid ever since my wife was a target of credit fraud artist. I am sure a corporation has never or would never think of spying or "collecting" information about us without our knowledge, and then selling it with out our permission. Opps!! That is how our credit reports work.
Sorry for the incomplete post. Fingers are faster than my mind sometimes!
secondchoice said:
Yes. Nothing else there. In fact, I have two of them... old and new models.
And David knows what every chip does.
SirRoxalot said:
Chips can be looked up online. Even if there is proprietary programmed firmware, the chipset has to support specific functions.
And... quite a few of these things have been sold on eBay and elsewhere, and dissected by knowledgeable people. Were there hidden functions or capabilities, we would know about it.
Much of the space is taken up by the battery, by the way. Next is the equivalent of flash memory, to hold the detections.
DavidEduardo said:
Wasn't there a post about someone (a consultant IIRC) having a PPM and Arbitron was going to court to get it back.
secondchoice said:
Black market encoders and meters are actually the property of Arbitron, and may have come from dishonest station employees and from panelists who did not return meters. Such devices are deactivated.
A few non-activated meters have been given to persons in the industry; I got mine after participating in working groups for the Philadelphia and Houston PPM tests and an ad agency / radio workgroup over a period of 10 years.
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