Clear Channel To Test New Device To Track Audience

People Meter on Smart Cell Phones 

SARAH MCBRIDE / Wall Street Journal 20mar2006

Clear Channel Communications Inc. will test a new radio measurement device in its Houston market, a step toward putting Arbitron Inc.'s monopoly in radio-audience measurement at risk.

Clear Channel, the nation's largest radio company, is set to announce it will try a mobile-phone based system developed by The Media Audit, a business of International Demographics Inc. of Houston, in partnership with Paris-based Ipsos SA. The test will begin in the next few months in Houston.

The Clear Channel test gives some momentum to the Media Audit system, which also has deals for Houston tests with CBS Corp.'s CBS Radio, Radio One Inc. and Cox Radio Inc. The system works by giving survey participants devices called Smart Cell Phones that track radio listening by picking up an encoded signal.

Currently, most radio listening information comes from pen-and-paper diaries submitted by people to Arbitron. The system is under fire for being old-fashioned and possibly inaccurate.

Arbitron is working on its own updated system, the People Meter, which also is based on audio encoding and has been tested for several years. People participating in its surveys carry pager-sized devices. Last week, Arbitron announced it would roll out the People Meter in Houston this summer and in the top 50 markets in the next few years.

Arbitron has said it could incorporate the People Meter into mobile phones, but says that because people in older age groups tend to use mobile phones more sporadically than younger people, it prefers separate devices. Media Audit proponents say young people are harder to track and would be less inclined to carry around a separate device.

A consortium of radio companies is evaluating various ways to measure radio listening. Earlier this month, the consortium said it had narrowed the field to three finalists: Arbitron, Media Audit, and a system from GfK Corp.'s Mediamark Research Inc. Mediamark plans to track listening through small devices that could be embedded in a phone or elsewhere.

Other big companies with stations in the Houston market that could soon start testing the Smart Cell Phone include Cumulus Media Inc., Susquehanna Radio Corp. and Univision Communications Inc.

OMD and PHD Commit to Arbitron Portable People Meter System for 
Future Radio Planning and Buying

Multi-Year Data Services Contract Includes Provision for Use of PPM-Based Radio Estimates

Press Release / BUSINESS WIRE 20mar2006

NEW YORK — Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) announced today that OMD and PHD, two of the world's largest media services agencies, have signed a contract for the use of Portable People Meter (PPM(SM)) based radio audience estimates. The agreement covers the U.S.-based radio planning and buying activities of OMD and PHD, both part of the Omnicom Media Group.

Arbitron will start the rollout of the Portable People Meter (PPM(SM)) system as its radio ratings service in the top 50 markets, beginning with Houston in July 2006.

The rollout schedule, the company has announced, would put the Portable People Meter into the top 10 radio markets by the fall of 2008, and into all of the top 50 radio markets two to three years thereafter.

The Portable People Meter, an electronic audience measurement technology that has been in U.S. market trials since 2001, will be used in these markets in place of the current paper and pencil diary method that the company has employed to collect radio audience estimates since 1965.

About the Portable People Meter

The Arbitron Portable People Meter (PPM) system uses a passive audience measurement device - about the size of a small cell phone - to track consumer exposure to media and entertainment, including broadcast, cable and satellite television; terrestrial, satellite and online radio as well as cinema advertising and many types of place-based electronic media. Carried throughout the day by randomly selected survey participants, the PPM device can track when and where they watch television, listen to radio as well as how they interact with other forms of media and entertainment.

The PPM detects inaudible codes embedded in the audio portion of media and entertainment content delivered by broadcasters, content providers and distributors. At the end of the day, the meter is placed in a docking station that extracts the codes and sends them to a central computer. The PPM is equipped with a motion sensor, a patented quality control feature unique to the system, which allows Arbitron to confirm the compliance of the PPM survey participants every day.

About Arbitron

Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) is an international media and marketing research firm serving radio broadcasters, cable companies, advertisers, advertising agencies and outdoor advertising companies in the United States, Mexico and Europe. Arbitron's core businesses are measuring network and local market radio audiences across the United States; surveying the retail, media and product patterns of local market consumers; and providing application software used for analyzing media audience and marketing information data. The Company has also deploying the Portable People Meter (PPM), a new technology for media and marketing research.

Arbitron's marketing and business units are supported by its research and technology organization, located in Columbia, Maryland. Arbitron has approximately 1,700 employees; its executive offices are located in New York City.

Through its Scarborough Research joint venture with VNU, Inc., Arbitron also provides media and marketing research services to the broadcast television, magazine, newspaper and online industries.

PPM(SM) is a service mark of Arbitron Inc.

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The statements regarding Arbitron in this document that are not historical in nature, particularly those that utilize terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "likely," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "believes" or "plans," or comparable terminology, are forward-looking statements based on current expectations about future events, which Arbitron has derived from information currently available to it. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause our results to be materially different from results implied in such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include whether we will be able to:

• renew all or part of contracts with large customers as they expire;
• successfully execute our business strategies, including implementation of our Portable People Meter services;
• effectively manage the impact of consolidation in the radio and advertising agency industries;
• keep up with rapidly changing technological needs of our customer base, including creating new proprietary software systems and new customer products and services that meet these needs in a timely manner;
• successfully manage the impact on our business of any economic downturn generally and in the advertising market in particular; and
• successfully manage the impact on costs of data collection due to privacy concerns and/or government regulations.

Additional important factors known to Arbitron that could cause forward-looking statements to turn out to be incorrect are identified and discussed from time to time in Arbitron's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including in particular the risk factors discussed under the caption "ITEM 1. BUSINESS - Business Risks" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K.

The forward-looking statements contained in this document speak only as of the date hereof, and Arbitron undertakes no obligation to correct or update any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

source: http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20060320005534&newsLang=en 20mar2006

Radio Firms to Test Listener E-Counting

AP 20mar2006

Clear Channel Radio is joining three other radio station companies to test a rival approach to Arbitron Inc.'s electronic measurement system as the industry moves away from traditional paper logs to assess audience size.

The issue has gained new urgency after Arbitron on Thursday launched its own electronic system, dubbed Portable People Meter, and said it would stop using the paper diary method of tracking listeners in Houston beginning in July.

Clear Channel, the nation's largest radio station owner, plans to announce today that it will join Cox Radio Inc., CBS Radio and Radio One Inc. in testing an electronic measurement system devised by the Media Audit and Ipsos, an international polling and market research firm.

source: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-radio20mar20,1,271249.story?coll=la-headlines-business 20mar2006

Arbitron's Portable People Meter 10apr2005

PETER ROJAS / Engadget 10arp2005

Most of the story is about the how the ratings business is changing right now, but the New York Times Magazine had a little something today about how Arbitron, a company which measures radio station ratings, is currently testing the Portable People Meter, a pager-like two-inch by half-inch gadget that is supposed to be able to track all the media you're exposed to throughout the day. Volunteers in Houston who have agreed to test the Portable People Meters are expected to wear them during all waking hours and then pop them into a cradle before they go to bed at night so the PPM can communicate back to Arbitron HQ what radio station you were listening to, what TV shows you were watching, etc.

Assuming that it works—the PPM relies on radio and TV stations participating in the trials to encode special markers into their programming—this system would be more reliable than their current technique, which mainly involves trying to get people to keep track of what they listen to themselves. The scariest/most fascinating part is that if Arbitron could somehow convince record labels, film studios, video game makers, etc to insert these marker codes into the audio tracks for their products, they could conceivably have some crazily accurate figures on how people are actually consuming media (Max Headroom, anyone?). And yes, they're already trying to work GPS in there somehow, as well as figure out if RFID tags in magazines and newspapers could be used to track your exposure to print advertising.

source: http://www.engadget.com/2005/04/10/arbitrons-portable-people-meter/ 20mar2006

PPM Data Paints New Picture of Radio Audience

AdAge.com i.19 23sep2005

Radio listeners tune into twice as many stations and their listening time is about 50% lower than reported under the old paper diary measurement system, according to data from Arbitron’s portable people meter (PPM) trial in Houston.

Arbitron this past week released top-line data from its summer PPM trial in Houston and the new numbers could have major implications for the way radio is planned, bought and sold.

35% decrease

Under the PPM system, station rankings in the Houston metro market remained largely unchanged when compared to diaries, but morning drive ratings decreased significantly across the market from 14.2 to 9.2. Morning drive, Arbitron has found, is a day part diary keepers commonly over report. Afternoon drive, evenings and weekends saw less of a fall-off.

“The PPM data show what lots of other studies show -- that the diary tends to understate the variety of stations people are listening to,” said media planning consultant Erwin Ephron. “It understates reach and overstates the volume… which means ratings are slightly lower.”

Pierre Bouvard, president of Arbitron's portable people meter and international initiatives said “We saw a very consistent cume increase across the marketplace. In our conversations with advertisers and agencies they say this is the sticking point. Radio is a reach medium and it doesn’t know it.”

Houston is second trial

Although Arbitron currently measures U.S. radio ratings using a paper diary system, its PPM technology has been used to measure media in Canada, Belgium and Singapore. The Houston PPM trial is the second one the company has conducted in the U.S. (the first was in Philadelphia) and was chosen because of its diverse population. The trial measured the listening habits of 2,100 consumers, age six and older.

PPM is a passive measurement system in which participants carry a small pager-like device that picks up inaudible codes embedded within the audio streams. Participants must carry the device with them at least 8 hours a day to be included in the sample (the PPM’s motion sensor can detect when a participant leaves the device on the dresser at home) and dock the device into a station at night to send data to Arbitron.

The practice of having a listener hand record every single time he or she flips the radio dial tends to undercount the number of stations listened to during the day. For example, the average diary indicates a person listens to about 2.2 stations while the average PPM indicates about 4.2 stations. Additionally, Hispanics listen to more stations than the rest of the market -- 5.5 on average.

Drop in AQH

Yet because time spent tuning in each occasion was shorter, AQH, or average quarter hour ratings, dropped. Mr. Bouvard said this is because the diary system reported two times the number of respondents who listened to more than 25 hours to a particular station. Fewer numbers of those “heavy listening” respondents in the PPM system pulled the average time spent listening down.

“Radio’s always been positioned as a frequency medium because it’s relentlessly retail oriented,” said Mr. Ephron. “But that’s not the way buying is done nationally. Radio has reach capabilities that are often ignored.” He said the PPM figures make that argument “more compelling.”

In addition to radio, PPM measures other media, including in-store audio and both in-home and out-of-home TV viewing. Arbitron found that, despite misconceptions that out-of-home TV viewing is typically relegated to men in bars, levels were very similar between men and women. It also found the majority of out of home viewing occurs during weekdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., not in the evenings.

DVR shifting measured

Because every inaudible code is also time stamped, the PPM can measure time-shifted media consumption as well. About 9% of its PPM panelists lived in DVR households and Arbitron found that about 7% of TV viewing by those panelists was time-shifted. Of those time-shifted programs, about 80% were viewed the next day and about 90% were viewed within two days.

Arbitron said it will continue to release additional Houston PPM data every month. Mr. Bouvard said the company is still open to a joint venture with Nielsen, which would use PPM technology for a passively measured TV ratings system.

source: http://www.ohionews.org/ad092305.html 20mar2006

The Portable People Meter Knows All 

MARC FISHER / Washington Post 20jun2004

For the past few years, about 1,500 people in the Philadelphia area have worn small electronic devices that keep track of every bit of radio programming they might hear in the car, at the office, as they walk to lunch, when they drop by a friend's house or when they hit happy hour after work.

The gadget, the Portable People Meter, contains motion detectors to make certain that someone is really wearing the device, and extra-sensitive microphones that pick up codes hidden in each program. Each evening, the wearer takes off the device, plugs it into a docking station and transmits the data to Arbitron, the company that has dominated the radio ratings business for decades.

The Portable People Meter is the next big thing in ratings. While Media Matrix and Nielsen use software that monitors every click on the computers of people who have agreed to be part of the Internet ratings sample, and Nielsen attaches electronic meters to the TVs in the 5,000 homes that make up the national ratings sample, Arbitron's radio ratings still rely entirely on paper diaries that listeners fill out by hand.

It is hard to find anyone in radio who believes the Arbitron ratings really reflect what people listen to. The diaries are too subject to embarrassment (Do I really want to write down that I listen to all five hours of Howard Stern?), boasting (Oh yeah, I listen to the news, all day), and memory lapses (Which one of those hit music stations was on in the car?).

But the biggest problem is that radio ratings -- and therefore nearly all radio programming decisions -- are based on diaries that an ever-dwindling portion of the public is willing to fill out. The number of people who agreed to take $2 a week to complete a diary dropped from 43 percent of those asked in 1995 to 34 percent in 2002. Arbitron has upped the payoff to $10 a week, but the basic problem remains: Diaries ask listeners to reconstruct their day (or week), remembering fine details about how many minutes they spent with each radio station.

The people meter is still a few years from nationwide deployment, but eventually it will track not only radio listening, but every kind of media exposure, from TiVo to Web surfing, cable to satellite. And fears of Big Brother are no hindrance: Finding enough people to wear the meter is no problem, the ratings companies say. The token payment hardly matters; it's the thrill of being counted (with minimal effort expended) that draws people in.

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52438-2004Jun18?language=printer 20mar2006