Radio Business Report ran this story in today's edition:
Nielsen Media Research has not yet closed the door, but the possibility of Nielsen entering the Next-Generation RFP for electronic radio audience measurement in the US was dismissed Friday as "extremely unlikely" by parent company VNU CFO Rob Ruijter. Nielsen confirmed last month that it was approached by the Clear Channel-led group about entering the competition with the passive device it is developing for measuring out-of-home TV viewing (9/12/06 RBR #177) "We don't really have any intention to go into radio measurement. I know that it was both rumored and, yes, we were approached by a number of parties about whether we would be interested in doing radio measurement, but I don't really think that that is our space. Therefore it is extremely unlikely that we would go there," Ruijter said in answer to analyst's question about whether Nielsen was going to compete for the US radio ratings market.
That's pretty close to the way PPMNews suggested it would turn out when we posted a commentary on September 12th that took into consideration the likely non-competitive agreements that Arbitron and Nielsen must have in place that allowed not only the due diligence of the partnership evaluation and Arbitron's stated intention of NOT pursuing TV without a Nielsen partnership but also the Arbitron/Nielsen Project Apollo venture.
No doubt, a Nielsen run at radio measurement would have been a great negotiating chip.
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