Arbitron execs herald NYC launch of PPM

Arbitron Sr. VP of Ratings Services Jay Guyther proudly told reporters that the company's Portable People Meter (PPM) ratings service launched at its in-tab goal for New York, as pre-currency measurement began yesterday. As with previous markets, the problem demo is Persons 18-34, which is at 66% of target in the core New York market (excluding the embedded Nassau-Suffolk and Middlesex-Somerset-Union markets), compared to 91% for Persons 6+. Those figures were as of August 29th and Guyther said the in-tab numbers had grown by over 200 since then, so he declared the launch to be on target.

Meanwhile, Arbitron President of Sales and Marketing Pierre Bouvard, pictured, was upbeat on soon getting back to the company's PPM targets in both Houston and Philadelphia. As of the week of 8/23-29, Houston remained 140 under target for in-tab and Philadelphia 56 under.

In addition to the New York launch, this week also brought the first appearance of ads from Arbitron in advertising trade publications to guide buyers on the conversion from diary measurement to PPM, along with more detailed brochures. Some readers had asked RBR why Arbitron is saying that 70 GRP under PPM "can equal" 100 GRP diary, rather than stating flat out that the two are equal, so we put the question to Bouvard.

"As you look at the brochure, one of the first things you're struck by is that the conversion ratios differ by daypart and by demo. So, depending upon your demographic - I'll give you an example. Let's say you had a male buy, and you were using a lot of nights and weekends, as you play with that chart you might discover that all of the conversion is probably around 80-85. However, if you had a female buy and were using heavy morning drive allocations, you might have a conversion that might actually be 65. So what we tried to do, the rule of thumb is you take the average. And, on average - we looked at the total 12+ rating listening in Philly and Houston - on average, it varied by month, but typically if you had a 1.0 average quarter hour rating in the diary, you have a 0.7 in PPM," Bouvard explained. 

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