Raycom Media’s Vice President of Research, Billy McDowell, has weighed in on the FCC’s Notice of Inquiry regarding Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM). McDowell, who chairs the Television Committee of the Media Rating Council (MRC), assured the FCC that the MRC knows what it is doing.
McDowell doesn’t attempt to inject himself into the dispute over whether the FCC should probe the use of PPM for radio ratings. Rather, he limits himself to addressing the questions raised in the NOI regarding the MRC. In his view, the MRC “has performed a valuable service to our industry” by creating minimum standards in research and using audits by independent accounting firms. That, he said, has “fostered an environment of transparency” and served to improve overall quality.
“Every product under consideration is given the opportunity for review from representatives across the industry. I have witnessed these procedures to be fair, reliable and actionable so that improvements to products are often the results of our discussions,” McDowell told the Commission.
He closed by thanking the FCC for its interest in the MRC. “The effectiveness of this organization is critical to the development and implementation of new, as well as established, methods of measurement,” McDowell wrote.
