Arbitron to begin the roll out of the Portable People Meter System.

Arbitron Inc. announced that it will begin the rollout of the Portable People Meter (PPM SM) system as its radio ratings service in the top 50 markets.

Beginning with Houston in July 2006, Arbitron will start making the change to the Portable People Meter, an electronic audience measurement technology that has been in U.S. market trials since 2001. The PPM will be used in place of the current paper and pencil diary method that the company has employed to collect radio audience estimates since 1965.

The rollout schedule the company is announcing today would put the Portable People Meter into the top 10 radio markets by the fall of 2008, and into all of the top 50 radio markets two to three years thereafter.

“The termination of the Nielsen Media Research option for the PPM earlier this month has given Arbitron the freedom to introduce the Portable People Meter as a local market, radio audience ratings system in the United States,” said Steve Morris, president and chief executive officer, Arbitron Inc. “Now that we are finally able to make a commitment to roll out the PPM for radio, we anticipate that our customers will be more willing to make a commitment to the PPM as well.

“In 2001, we took the lead by launching the first ever U.S. market trial of a portable and passive electronic measurement system for radio,” said Mr. Morris. “We’ve spent the past five years reviewing and refining every aspect of the Portable People Meter system in close cooperation with the U.S. radio industry. We believe it’s time for Arbitron to take the lead once again.

“At the same time, we will continue to work with those of our customers who are in the process of examining options for the ‘next generation’ of electronic measurement. Today’s PPM is tenth generation technology; packed with state-of-the-art capabilities that are significant improvements over what we put in the field five years ago. And as the requirements of the radio industry continue to evolve, so will the Arbitron PPM in response to any ‘next generation’ needs,” said Mr. Morris.

“We know one thing from our own experience with the radio industry during the development of the PPM: these sorts of ‘next-generation’ explorations always take far more time than anyone ever anticipates. We decided to move forward because there are important benefits that the rollout of the Portable People Meter is able to bring to radio today.

“We believe advertisers will have increased confidence in the medium, thanks to the increased accountability that electronic measurement delivers. Stations will have new audience insights to make improvements to their programming and broadcasters will be better able to garner incremental revenue from new and existing advertisers,” said Mr. Morris.

Arbitron believes that the introduction of the Portable People Meter will offer significant and immediate advantages to local market radio broadcasters and their advertisers including:

– Faster and more frequent delivery of ratings reports

– Better insights into how people listen to radio

– More reliable measures of the total audience reached by a radio station—the PPM indicates that a typical radio station often reaches twice as many listeners compared to current measures of the audience

– Additional sales opportunities for stations through better measures of the audience to special programming events and during evenings or weekends

– More stable audience trends with far less “bounce” from one report to the next

– The ability to report all of radio’s new distribution methods: HD Radio, Internet streaming, digital multicasts, podcasting and others

The Portable People Meter has been deployed in Houston as a demonstration of the electronic ratings system since July 2005. Arbitron has previously stated that it could switch to the PPM in Houston as early as April 2006. The company is launching the service in July 2006 to give the Houston radio marketplace additional time to prepare for the transition from diary-based measurement to electronic measurement.

Arbitron will support this process by deploying a team of account managers, trainers and software specialists to work side by side with stations, agencies and advertisers who conduct business in the Houston radio market.