Media Week reports -- making good on its word to forge ahead with a portable people meter-based radio ratings service, Arbitron announced it would begin rolling out PPM ratings to the top 50 markets beginning this July with Houston. The rollout plan calls for the top 10 markets by fall 2008 and the rest of the top 50 by 2010-2011. Philadelphia, the site of the first PPM test, will be the second PPM market in the rollout.
A portable, pager-sized device, the PPM would replace the current diary-based service, which has been used as the currency to buy and sell radio since 1965. The new passive, multimedia, electronic methodology, promises to deliver ratings faster, more frequently, and more accurately than the current system.
The news of the rollout follows less than two weeks after Nielsen Media Research, owned by Mediaweek parent VNU, said no to a joint venture with Arbitron to commercialize a portable people meter-based ratings service for TV, paving the way for Arbitron to pursue its �radio first� strategy for the PPM.
A portable, pager-sized device, the PPM would replace the current diary-based service, which has been used as the currency to buy and sell radio since 1965. The new passive, multimedia, electronic methodology, promises to deliver ratings faster, more frequently, and more accurately than the current system.
The news of the rollout follows less than two weeks after Nielsen Media Research, owned by Mediaweek parent VNU, said no to a joint venture with Arbitron to commercialize a portable people meter-based ratings service for TV, paving the way for Arbitron to pursue its �radio first� strategy for the PPM.