Spanish Broadcasting System, Inc. Multi-Market Agreement For Portable People Meter.

Arbitron Inc. announced that Spanish Broadcasting System, Inc. has entered into a multi-year, multi-market agreement for Portable People Meter (PPM SM) audience measurement services when deployed in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami. These five mainland U.S. markets are served by nine Spanish Broadcasting System stations.

Raúl Alarcón Jr., president, chairman and chief executive officer of Spanish Broadcasting System Inc., commented, “We are willing to make this commitment to PPM as the new currency for radio in order to provide our advertisers with the most accountable measures possible of our growing audiences. We are counting on the PPM to enhance the credibility of our programming and the value of these audiences in the eyes of our advertisers.”

“Should PPM come to Miami as part of Arbitron’s ‘radio-first’ initiative, we also intend to encode our TV station to uncover important opportunities for cross-promotion with our radio stations in that market,” said Mr. Alarcón.

“I commend the forward thinking of Spanish Broadcasting System for signing for PPM and embracing change for the future,” said Kathy Crawford, president local broadcast, Mindshare, a WPP Group company, one of the world’s largest media investment management companies with annual billings in excess of $17 billion.

“Spanish Broadcasting System, a pioneer in the fast growing, Spanish-language radio industry, is one of the very first radio broadcasters to support Arbitron’s Portable People Meter. Mediacom recognizes the leadership and vision of Raul Alarcón Jr. and salutes his desire to improve radio’s accountability for America’s advertisers,” said Alan Rovitzky, senior vice president, Channel Insights, Mediacom, one of the world’s largest strategic media planning and buying companies, with over $13 billion in global billings.

“Mr. Alarcón has long been an innovator in Spanish language broadcasting in the United States and recognizes the need to invest in the best,” said Carol Hanley, senior vice president, sales, Arbitron Inc. “Mr. Alarcón is making an important investment in the credibility of his audience ratings.”

“One key criteria for attaining credibility among advertisers is an ability to properly represent Hispanics as well as other key segments of the marketplace,” said Ms. Hanley. “Arbitron has demonstrated that it can field a PPM sample that reflects the diversity of the markets that we survey. Hispanics, both in terms of language preference and ethnicity, are well represented in the Houston PPM sample.”

The agreement with Spanish Broadcasting System does not commit Arbitron to a specific timetable for deployment of the Portable People Meter system. Arbitron has not yet determined when and in which markets it will deploy the Portable People Meter system to measure local market radio audiences.