The Media Audit/Ipsos to Include in Single Radio Ratings Report In Proposed New Ratings Service

National Public Radio....A Major Factor in Radio Listening

(Houston July 31, 2006) National Public Radio is the 4th most listened to radio format according to a study just released by The Media Audit at public radio's DEI conference in New Orleans. The telephone study of 114,035 adults was conducted across 84 cities in 2005 and early 2006.

"Listening to public radio has been growing steadily over the past 20 years" commented Bob Jordan, president of The Media Audit. "Today, public stations encompass many formats and have become a formidable factor. Awareness of public radio's growth as a format has not been that visible since data for public stations are not reported in the primary audience ratings service" said Jordan.

"It is important for radio programmers and managers to know the full story" said Jordan. "We have always included all radio listening (commercial and non-commercial) in our multi-media reports. We will do the same with our Smart Cell Phone initiative.  [ MORE ]

Local People Meters, Headed for More Cities, Have Changed the Game in Boston

PPM NEWS OBERSERVATION-> Take particular note of the 6th paragraph in the article that reads "The other emerging story lies in the LPM's ability to improve measurement of local cable ratings. Operators have experienced a 23% increase in measured viewing since the introduction of LPMs, according to Nielsen estimates. "  Very interesting...

Link: Broadcasting & Cable: The Business of Television .

Local People Meters, Headed for More Cities, Have Changed the Game in Boston

By Wayne Karrfalt -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/24/2003 Advertisers trying to get a better handle on tough-to-measure local cable viewing are keeping one eye on Boston, the first market to use Nielsen's local people meter. The ratings service plans to expand LPM service to New York, Los Angeles and Chicago next year and will add more cities the following year.

Welcome to PPM News!

PPM News is no longer "under construction."  While it might not be completely ready for "prime time" either, we've released it into the wild of the blogosphere. We invite you to join the discussion.

PPM News is a blog space that is intended as an ongoing discussion of information and issues that relate to the electronic measurement of radio. It is intended as a forum for industry professionals to keep up to date on information, rumor, ideas and opinion. But it is especially intended to be a learning tool.

PPM News was originally conceived as an internal site for R.O.I. Media Solutions in Los Angeles as we delved into this learning process and began trying to understand the methodology, the systems and the impact of electronic measurement on the radio industry, our clients and our own business.

Arbitron To Launch Satellite Radio Measurement With Fall Survey

Arbitron To Launch Satellite Radio Measurement With Fall Survey

Arbitron has informed its Advisory Board that it will begin measuring satellite radio channels starting with the Fall 2006 survey.  [ More at Radio Ink ]

Launch of PPM still pending MRC Accreditation

It appears from published reports that Arbitron has again affirmed that it will not go live with the PPM system until it has MRC accreditation.  The next meeting of the MRC is in late August.

Arbitron to Release Spring 2006 Radio Audience Reports for New Orleans and Biloxi on August 14

There was some concern that the MRC (Media Ratings Council) was not prepared to give the New Orleans book accreditation over concerns about the population estimates.  Looks like Arbitron and the MRC worked through those differences.  Nielsen is scheduled to resume its TV ratings service in New Orleans next February... 

Arbitron to Release Spring 2006 Radio Audience Reports for New Orleans and Biloxi on August 14

Company satisfied with validity of new population estimates and with the quality of April to June survey of market residents;

Station and agency orientation seminars slated to begin during week of August 7

NEW YORK; July 28, 2006 – Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) announced today that it would release the results of the Spring 2006 radio ratings survey for New Orleans and Biloxi-Gulfport-Pascagoula on Monday, August 14.

Over the next two weeks, Arbitron will prepare and release a white paper detailing population estimates, survey execution and sample performance metrics for these markets. The company will also hold meetings in the markets with its customers to review the information in the white paper and answer questions.  [ Rest of the release at Arbitron.com ]

Bridge Study Says New Music Still Found First On Terrestrial Radio

Link: www.fmqb.com.

Bridge Study Says New Music Still Found First On Terrestrial Radio

A new study from Bridge Ratings looks at which media consumers go to in finding new music and sees traditional, terrestrial radio come out on top. Out of the 2500 12-54 year-olds surveyed in June, 45 percent said that terrestrial radio was their preferred source of new music, beating out Internet radio and P2P networks. Satellite radio finished dead last amongst the options given.  [ More ]

Radio's Ability to Compete in a New Paradigm of Ad Sales (and Accountability)

This is only the first glimpse of a whole new set of evaluation and sales tools that agency planners and buyers are going be using to place media dollars. If sellers in the world of TV and New Media are making presentations based on this kind of information, PPM data will be critical just to have a voice in the process... From today's Advertising Age:

TiVo to Offer Advertisers Second-By-Second Viewing Data

OMD, Nissan First to Sign Up for Service

By Abbey Klaassen Published: July 26, 2006 NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- TiVo is fast turning from Madison Avenue foe to friend. Just weeks after Nielsen announced it would begin reporting average program commercial ratings, TiVo has announced it will slice audience data down to the second. OMD and Nissan have signed onto the company's initial offering. [More at Ad Age]

Conflicting Views On Rolling Out Arbitron's PPM

Link: www.mediaweek.com.

Conflicting Views On Rolling Out Arbitron's PPM

Katy Bachman JULY 26, 2006 - The status of Arbitron's portable people meter service promises once again to be the major topic of discussion at the ratings firm's radio advisory council meeting Wednesday to Friday in Colorado Springs. But unlike the previous meeting, when broadcasters pressured Arbitron to wait until it achieved Media Rating Council accreditation in Houston before going live with the PPM service, this week's meeting could find some broadcasters urging Arbitron to go ahead with the balance of its rollout schedule even without the double checkmarks of full accreditation.

Continue reading at...  MediaWeek.com

TiVo Is Watching When You Don’t Watch, and It Tattles

Link: www.nytimes.com.

TiVo Is Watching When You Don’t Watch, and It Tattles

AS the advertising and television industries debate how to measure viewers of shows watched on digital video recorders, the pioneering maker of the recorders, TiVo, is getting into the argument. It is starting a research division to sell data about how its 4.4 million users watch commercials — or, more often, skip them.

The service is based on an analysis of the second-by-second viewing patterns of a nightly sample of 20,000 TiVo users, whose recorders report back to TiVo on what was watched and when.

On average, TiVo has found that its users spend nearly half of their television time watching programs recorded earlier. And viewers of those recorded shows skip about 70 percent of the commercials, said Todd Juenger, TiVo’s vice president for audience research.

Continue Reading...