Entercom hadn’t been under any immediate pressure to sign a contract with Arbitron for Portable People Meter service, since it had no stations in the first markets on the roll-out list. CEO David Field applauded the increased audience reach demonstrated by PPM as he signed a contract with Arbitron for PPM data in his 14 markets scheduled for the roll-out.
“The Arbitron Portable People Meter is reporting that an average radio station reaches twice as many listeners as the diary has been telling us. If the New York Times were to discover that its readership was twice as large as everyone thought, they would likely stage a parade down Madison Avenue. Radio should not pass up any opportunity to remind advertisers that we are a reach medium, one that offers marketers the most cost effective opportunity to expose more of their consumers to their advertising messages,” said Field in the announcement released by Arbitron.
Under the current roll-out schedule, the first Entercom market to receive PPM will be San Francisco, beginning in September of this year, with Entercom home base of Boston to follow in March 2009. Other Entercom markets on the roll-out list to have PPM by the end of 2010 are Austin, Denver, Greensboro-Winston Salem-High Point, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Memphis, Milwaukee, Norfolk, Portland OR, Providence, Sacramento and Seattle.
