Arbitron Radio Commits To Using Language Preference Of Hispanic Diarykeepers.

Arbitron Inc. announced that it has committed to implement weighting by the language preference of Hispanic diarykeepers at a yet-to-be-determined date. The company is currently designing the project plan for the software modifications it needs to use language preference as an additional variable in the tabulation of radio audience estimates in Hispanic markets. Arbitron intends to announce the timing and other details of the project plan early next year.

“We see the addition of weighting by language preference as one more incremental enhancement in the services we offer our subscribers,” said Owen Charlebois, president, U.S. Media Services, Arbitron Inc. “We have a great deal of confidence in the quality of our current audience estimates, and we always strive to improve how we serve our customers and the marketplace. Weighting by language preference would allow stations and advertisers that target specific segments in the Hispanic community to reach those consumers more effectively.”

Arbitron currently uses age/sex, geography and, in some markets, race/ethnicity as weighting variables in its local market radio ratings. Weighting is a standard statistical technique that is used to compensate for any oversampling or undersampling of a particular demographic characteristic in the returned diaries that are used to tabulate audience estimates.

The approach that the company is planning to use for language-preference weighting would divide the Hispanic sample into two language-preference groups: Spanish-dominant and non-Spanish-dominant. Arbitron would weight the returned diaries for each of these groups against a predetermined estimate of the language preference of the Hispanic population in each market.

Since the U.S. Census cannot be used as the source for language preference of Hispanics in the United States, determining the benchmark or “universe” for the language preference of Hispanics in local markets is one of the key elements in the project plan that Arbitron is currently defining.

Arbitron has been tracking the language preference of Hispanic diarykeepers since 1997 and reporting radio audience estimates by language preference since 1998. Over the past eight years, the company has conducted nearly a half-dozen studies of language preference. In Winter 2002, the company modified the technique used to determine language preference, asking the language preference question in the telephone call used to recruit diarykeepers, instead of in the diary itself.