Arbitron to delay reporting of non-commercial radio stations.
October 8, 2006
Arbitron Inc. announced that it will delay the reporting of public and non-commercial radio stations in the company’s local market ratings reports. The company is revising its plans based on input received from the Arbitron Radio Advisory Council during the October 23-25 meeting held in Houston.
Arbitron had announced on September 25, 2006 that public and non-commercial radio stations would have been eligible for reporting in the company’s local market ratings reports effective with the release of the Fall 2006 survey reports.
The Council requested that Arbitron wait to report public and non-commercial radio stations in the company’s local market ratings only when Arbitron was ready to report to report individual satellite radio channels and Internet radio channels.
The company is currently collecting and analyzing additional data in order to further refine rules for crediting satellite radio entries, including the rules for handling diary entries that could be assigned to either satellite or over-the-air stations.
Public and non-commercial radio stations are currently reported in Arbitron’s Maximi$er® and Media ProfessionalSM respondent level data services and in the special public radio service marketed by the Radio Research Consortium (RRC). Non-commercial stations are also currently reported in Arbitron’s national radio ratings services such as Nationwide and the National/Regional Database (NRD).
Listening to non-commercial stations, Internet radio simulcasts of AM/FM stations, HD multicast stations and satellite radio will continue to be included in estimates of total radio listening (PUR).
