Arbitron touts PPM progress

Just as company officials did last week when they announced that the Portable People Meter rollout would resume in September, Arbitron officials repeatedly noted in yesterday’s monthly conference call on PPM how metrics had improved since the rollout was put on hold last October. Of particular interest to most broadcasters, Arbitron Sr. VP of Marketing Bill Rose noted that the 18-24 demo was back up in Philadelphia in the new May report, having dipped as Arbitron initiated an effort to boost 25-34, which is also up. The overall result is a 97 DDI for the 18-34 demo, where most radio ad business is transacted. New York isn’t quite to that point, but he claimed “good solid progress.”

Meanwhile, Los Angeles, Riverside-San Bernardino, Chicago, San Francisco and San Jose are on the PPM launching pad and clients from Washington, DC, Atlanta, Boston and Dallas were especially invited to be on yesterday’s call, since PPM panel installations are underway in those markets.

Here’s a look at total sample sizes in the PPM markets when the rollout was put on hold last October and in the May data released yesterday. 100 is the target for each.

	Persons 6+		Persons 18-54
	Oct 2007	May 2008	Oct 2007	May 2008
Houston	103	103	104	104
Philadelphia	105	109	96	108
New York (non-embedded)	96	109	86	102
Nassau-Suffolk	104	108	96	106
Middlesex-Somerset-Union	101	108	92	102
Los Angeles	—	110	—	104
Riverside	—	118	—	115
Chicago	—	122	—	113
San Francisco	—	100	—	87
San Jose	—	94	—	88

Source: Arbitron

More importantly to many broadcasters, Arbitron says it has dramatically improved its sample for the 18-34 demo, Blacks 18-34 and Hispanics 18-34.

	Persons 18-34		Black 18-34		Hispanic 18-34
	Oct 2007	May 2008	Oct 2007	May 2008	Oct 2007	May 2008
Houston	98	98	91	103	77	108
Philadelphia	62	97	67	105	48	100
New York (non-embedded)	65	91	58	81	80	121
Nassau-Suffolk	57	81	64	88	47	51
Middlesex-Somerset-Union	59	87	73	91	51	77
Los Angeles	—	92	—	83	—	97
Riverside	—	104	—	XX	—	XX
Chicago	—	95	—	92	—	117
San Francisco	—	76	—	63	—	106
San Jose	—	69	—	**	—	101

Source: Arbitron

As has become traditional with the monthly calls, reporters were waiting anxiously for consultant Randy Kabrich to put in an appearance. But his question this time dealt with why PPM encoding is working for one Internet stream, while not for another stream with the same bit-rate and seemingly all other factors the same. Arbitron is just weeks away from starting to include Internet streams and HD channels in PPM data.

But after the call Kabrich got in his zinger by sending reporters a PPM data run from the new May release for Women 18-24 in the Nassau-Suffolk (Long Island) market. Lots and lots of stations were listed, but none had data, because not a single one met Arbitron’s minimum reporting standards.

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