Pierre Bouvard, Arbitron President of Sales & Marketing, declared that we have “great news for you on the PPM sample" as he began yesterday’s monthly conference call with station clients, agencies and the trade press. He declared that the company achieved “excellent performance against our panel benchmarks” in 10 PPM markets – the two where PPM is already rating currency and the eight scheduled to come onboard next month when September data is released.
Bill Rose, Sr. VP of Marketing, detailed how PPM panels were well above benchmarks for the 10 markets, with the 6+ sample averaging a DDI of 106, 18-54 at 102 and 18-34 at 93. He noted that panels are meeting or exceeding benchmarks for 56 of the 57 cells in the 18-34 demos.
Did you guess that the one that missed is in the Nassau-Suffolk market? When RBR/TVBR asked why Nassau-Suffolk tends to be the laggard, Bouvard insisted that “we are actually in great shape,” and spelled out how the Long Island market was on par with other PPM markets in most regards – except for the “stubborn demo” of Hispanics 18-34.
With digital stations reported in PPM data for the second month, the number meeting minimum reporting standards has grown from only four stations in July to 11 in six markets for August (although only eight if you take out stations that made the list in multiple markets). All were Internet streams of over-the-air stations – no HD2 or HD3 stations yet.
Those Internet streams making the grade: New York: WLTW-FM, WHTZ-FM Nassau-Suffolk: WHTZ-FM Middlesex-Union: WCBS-FM, WLTW-FM, WHTZ-FM, WPLJ-FM Los Angeles: KOST-FM, KROQ-FM Chicago: WLS-AM Riverside: KDAY-FM
