If I ran the world

Radio One’s Alfred Liggins told Wall Street analysts and other interested parties how he might use two of the three wishes he might have at his disposal were he to free a genie from a bottle. For starters, he’d get a major grip on network radio, particularly in the Urban playing field, and he’d use the other one to make Arbitron a radio industry owned-and-operated business, focusing solely on producing accurate ratings with no sales or profit motivations involved.

Liggins noted that networks bring massive quantities of inventory into the game, driving down prices. At the same time, they tend to make the top stations in each market too easy to access, also driving down prices. He said its presence makes it incredibly difficult for stations to manage inventory and establish the worth of their stations.

As for Arbitron, he said radio is the ratings giant’s customer base, and the cost is significant, and the results aren’t all one might hope for at this particular moment, with side-by-side diary and PPM operations going on. Despite all this, the pain is being felt by operators, with advertisers reaping all the benefits of Arbitron’s work.

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