Arbitron & comScore To Develop Internet Measurement Services For Local Media.

Arbitron Inc. and comScore Networks, Inc. announced a collaborative effort to develop Internet measurement services for local media.

Arbitron will meet with management of local media outlets, including radio, TV, cable, newspapers, Internet content providers and advertising agencies to enlist support for these jointly-developed metrics.

localScore is a new service developed by comScore to measure audiences of local media Web sites in 78 Designated Market Areas (DMA) representing the majority of the U.S. population. localScore also correlates consumer Web usage with offline product and service sales in each local market.

“We see the potential for a substantial local advertising market on the Internet, as has long existed in traditional media,” explained Russ Fradin, vice president, Corporate Development, comScore. “Local market Web sites provide significant value because advertisers can target visitors in cities where they are most likely to buy and where advertisers’ products are distributed. Further, local Web site advertising can increase the impact of local buys across all types of media.”

“Our intent is to provide advertisers, agencies and sellers of advertising on local media Web sites with information needed to place the appropriate value on available inventory,” noted Bill Rose, vice president and general manager, Arbitron Webcast Services, Arbitron Inc. “These new services would offer compelling reasons for advertisers to use media Web sites in their local marketing efforts, by demonstrating the size, composition and local purchasing power of Web site visitors living in dozens of major markets. And this powerful information will be available to all local media, including radio stations, TV stations, newspapers, and cable properties.
“Our industry has a critical need to better understand local Web site dynamics and their impact on offline behavior,” continued Mr. Rose. “The combination of comScore’s revolutionary technology and Arbitron’s unmatched industry knowledge is poised to meet this need.”

The local market Web site metrics produced by comScore are based on the company’s Global Network, which continuously and confidentially captures the complete Internet activity of over 1.5 million representative, opt-in Internet users. With large samples across key audience segments and U.S. local markets, comScore’s Global Network delivers an unprecedented wealth of information about audience size, behavior and demographic composition. Information about offline consumer activity is based on U.S. government-produced data, which comScore integrates with online behavior using proprietary data modeling algorithms.