Weekly Radio Ratings System unveiled for Houston PPM SM market trial.

Arbitron Inc. released new ratings software for its Houston demonstration of the Portable People Meter audience measurement service. The new software gives that market’s radio programmers the ability to download weekly updates of audience ratings.

“Instead of waiting as long as a month for a ratings report that only reflects the average audience for the previous three months, radio station executives will now have a single week of reliable audience ratings to see how a programming strategy is working,” said Gary Marince, vice president, Programming Services and Development, Arbitron Inc. “And thanks to the reliability of the PPM ratings, programmers won’t have to resort to home-brew, back-of-the envelope extrapolations of Arbitron data that can lead to misleading conclusions about the behavior of the radio audience. With PPM, when you run a strong promotion, make a personality or format change, you’ll have credible audience feedback within weeks.”

“We designed the software to look and feel like the monthly Arbitrends SM system,” said George Brady, director, PPM Client Software, Arbitron Inc. “Programmers will see the same dayparts and the same demographics that they are used to (with the addition of 6+ and 6-11). However, instead of trending a rolling three-month average just 12 times each year, stations’ executives will be able to trend week-to-week estimates for all encoded stations in PPM-measured markets.”

How the Weekly Ratings Will Be Delivered

On August 24, 2006, Arbitron delivered a Houston PPM ratings report covering the week of Thursday, July 27, through Wednesday, August 2 (plus weekly back data for the four weeks in July). Subsequent weekly audience estimates can be accessed directly from Arbitron’s online data delivery system, TapMedia®. Data for August 3-9 will be available on August 28.