Arbitron To Track Podcasting With PPM.

With podcasting making headlines as one of the latest technologies being embraced by terrestrial radio broadcasters, Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) has demonstrated that its Portable People Meter (PPMSM) system has the ability to track audiences who listen to this new method of radio programming.

During the week of July 18, Arbitron encoded several podcasts by Clear Channel’s WHTZ-FM (Z100) in New York, that were uploaded to the podcast portion of Apple’s iTunes Music Store. The Z100 podcasts were then downloaded to an MP3 player and played over headsets using the PPM headset adapter. The PPM detected and recorded the unique identification codes that were embedded in the MP3 file.

“We’re committed to delivering Clear Channel Radio’s outstanding original content through a wide variety of delivery methods, including podcasting,” said John Hogan, Clear Channel Radio president and CEO.

“Podcasting is a very different distribution system for traditional radio and the successful test of the PPM should further build confidence in how well it works with all types of audio programming,” said Pierre Bouvard, president, Portable People Meters, Arbitron Inc. “The state-of-the-art encoding system used in the PPM does a better job of identifying alternate distribution platforms and time-shifted audio content than any other approach to portable electronic audience measurement that we’ve seen.”