[BC] Arbitron

[Rich Wood]

------ At 04:27 AM 7/23/2009, mrfixit at min.midco.net wrote: -------

>On the surface, it appears that this is a case of someone going nuts
>over tracking listenership. Perhaps that is it in its entirety, or
>maybe there is more to it.

Without encoding you don't exist. The diary was passive and required 
nothing from a station beyond a carefully filled out facilities form 
with any identifying info about the station. Everyone was included.

With the PPM, if the listening device doesn't "hear" you, you have no 
chance of appearing in the results.

You may be able to sell locally but kiss off any national buys. We 
all know the problems of the diary and have had years to learn to 
program to it. Waiting until Wednesday night to fill out all your 
listening for the week in the diary isn't possible. The PPM actively 
reports what it hears, when it hears it. So far, it looks like 
stations with long TSLs are taking a beating. Smooth Jazz is taking a 
beating and some stations are dropping the format before PPM hits the 
market. It seems to be good for high cuming stations and death for 
stations people like enough to listen for hours.

Ethnic stations see enough of a problem to get the government involved.

Rich