Arbitron’s Testimony to the New York City Council Sparks Response from AHAA.

Yesterday, Arbitron stood in front of the NY City Council and made both inaccurate and contradictory statements.

AHAA would like to reiterate that there is NO issue with the PPM INSTRUMENT. The problem is the METHODOLOGY: the accurate representation of the Hispanic radio listening audience.

Arbitron continues to defend its position by simply stating that they are using the “decades- old methodology” that was applied to the diary instrument. This is the problem. As any good researcher knows, the approach to data collection must be constantly reevaluated to meet the needs of a changing marketplace.

What is even more concerning are the conflicting comments made later in Arbitron’s testimony stating that this methodology has been improved over the years. Which one is it? Is Arbitron using decades-old methodology that they are standing by? Or, has it indeed been improved over the years? If so; how? Based on the assessment of the methodology by broadcasters, agencies and other organizations, there remain significant gaps in the accurate representation of the ethnic communities.

In addition, Arbitron shared samples of diaries with council members to demonstrate the inaccuracies among ethnic population segments in completion of the diaries. If these diaries are the typical responses that Arbitron has received, what if anything has Arbitron done to better educate respondents? Why did they continue to utilize diaries that they felt were overstating listenership?

Individual stakeholders within the Hispanic advertising industry have identified issues with the methodology; specifically the sampling size and representation for many years: the same issues that are shared by a much wider group of organizations. It is with the introduction of PPM, a more precise measurement tool, that the discrepancies have been exacerbated. Arbitron’s statement that “broadcasters of all formats including urban and Hispanic who have embraced PPM have improved their audiences and their standing in the marketplace” is completely false. As reported in Crains New York Business, PPM ratings for August, which came out Wednesday revealed that urban station WRKS-FM, which was No. 1 among persons 25 to 54 years old in the spring 2008 survey—which used diaries—was ranked fifth in the PPMs. Urban heritage station WBLS-FM fell from No. 2 in the spring to No. 11, and Spanish language WSKQ-FM, which was tied for No. 2 in the spring, came in at No. 6 in the PPMs.

We urge Arbitron to LISTEN AND ACT rather than try to defend current and outdated practices. The Hispanic advertising and broadcast industry is a community that is willing, ready, and able to work with Arbitron to rectify this damaging initiative. Our time is much better spent working together to solve the problems rather than continuing to restate our positions with the same apathetic response. Our community will step up to the plate to help resolve the issues but our efforts to do so have been met with resistance to change and an unwillingness to invest in changes that must be made to improve the sampling methodology.

Arbitron states that it is their responsibility to make the transition to PPM with as little disruption as “practicable.” The disruption is being caused by Arbitron’s lack of understanding regarding the gravity of the issue and problems our industry – and in the end, their business – is facing. If a petition to the FCC and a subpoena by the NY City Council isn’t disruption, we’d like to know what is. Arbitron claims that radio is a voice for the communities in NY City but they fail to realize that is more than a voice; it is a vehicle for communication and vital part of the Latino culture.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. It is our hope that this will be the catalyst to change the pattern.