Arbitron: Cell-Phone-Only Sampling underway in 151 Spring Radio Diary Markets.

Arbitron Inc. announced that it has begun cell-phone-only household sampling in an initial 151 diary markets for the Spring 2009 radio survey. The company plans to expand cell-phone-only sampling to all radio markets in continental U.S., Alaska and Hawaii with the Fall 2009 survey.

“More the a third of a million households have already been contacted to build the address-based sample frame we are using to include cell-phone-only radio listeners in our Spring 2009 diary survey,” said Ed Cohen, Vice President, Research Policy and Communication, Arbitron Inc. “As expected, these listeners are younger and more ethnic than the population at large.

“We’re also seeing that cell-phone-only penetration varies significantly by market. Our initial sampling results track very closely with state-level estimates recently issued by the National Center for Health Statistics,” said Mr. Cohen.