Arbitron releases preliminary radio ratings data from the Chicago Portable People Meter service.

Arbitron Inc. has released the first preliminary radio ratings from the Chicago Portable People Meter radio ratings service.

Top line ratings data from the June Portable People Meter (PPMTM) survey month, covering May 29 through June 25, 2008, are being delivered to subscribing radio stations, agencies and advertisers as an aid in planning for the transition from diary-based to electronic radio ratings. These ratings are preliminary and cannot be used in the buy/sell process for radio commercial time.

Chicago is one of eight radio markets scheduled to make the transition to Arbitron’s Portable People Meter service in September 2008.

Average station cume audiences are up sharply for formats

The PPM service in Houston, Philadelphia and New York has already shown that total weekly (cume) audiences for radio stations are up substantially over what the diary had reported. Preliminary data from Chicago show the same overall result.

Spanish Dominant Hispanics have highest radio listening in terms of key listening metrics

PPM data in Chicago show that radio delivers consistently high levels of weekly and daily cume audiences among all key race/ethnicity categories. Spanish Dominant Hispanics have the highest average rating among Persons 12+ and among Persons 25-54.

The PPM data also indicate that Spanish Dominant Hispanics and Other persons (non-Black, non-Hispanic) spend more time listening to radio than all other demographic segments of the Chicago market.

PPM confirms radio is the medium to reach working persons

One compelling finding reinforced by Portable People Meter ratings in Chicago is the dramatic increase in the composition of the radio audience (persons 18+) who are employed Full Time compared to what was reported by the radio diary. Radio’s “working persons” advantage also applies for African-American and Hispanic listeners.

On average, the working persons composition of the radio audience is about 20 percent greater than for the overall population. That general advantage holds up for Blacks and Hispanics.
The PPM data in Chicago indicate that the composition of the average quarter hour radio audience for Other (non-black, non-Hispanic) persons 18+ employed FT is the highest in the market (67.5%) and is significantly higher than what diary-based radio ratings had previously indicated.

PPM AQH composition confirms continued targetability of the radio formats

“Just as we have seen in our previous PPM markets, the Chicago June 2008 ratings show significant growth in the total audience reach of individual radio stations. That means advertisers can now turn to radio for something that they prize: the ability to deliver reach against a specific target audience,” said Pierre Bouvard, president, Sales and Marketing, Arbitron Inc. “We also see that, even as individual station cume audiences have increased due to PPM’s unique ability to track every station that a person can hear, radio still maintains its targetability.”

“The PPM ratings data clearly say that if you want an efficient ad schedule to reach your target audience, you need to consider stations and formats that deliver the highest percentage of AQH composition for your target audience. For example, you can’t effectively reach African Americans without urban radio,” said Julian Davis, director, Urban Media Services, Arbitron Inc.

PPM samples reflect the diversity of the Chicago radio market

Arbitron always strives to properly represent the diversity of the markets measured in all of its radio ratings services. The Company expends time, money and effort to recruit African Americans and Hispanics into the Portable People Meter surveys. These efforts have paid off in positive results:

o The percentage of African Americans in the PPM service more than matches the percentage of African Americans in the Chicago’s market and is 20 percent greater than our in-tab goal.
o The percentage of Hispanics in the PPM service more than matches the percentage of Hispanics in the Chicago’s market and is 28 percent greater than our in-tab goal
o The percentage of Spanish Dominant Hispanics exceeds the percentage in the marketplace and is 38 percent greater than our in-tab goal.
o While Arbitron’s experience has been that persons between the ages of 18 and 34 are generally less responsive to the efforts of survey researchers, by every significant measure we have been able to get blacks and Hispanics in this age group to participate at the equivalent levels as the population at large. Of particular note are Hispanics 18-34. The percentage of this difficult to reach segment matches the percentage of Hispanics 18-34 in Chicago and is 18 percent greater than our in-tab goal.

More analyses for all formats and segments of the radio industry to come

Arbitron’s goal is to help the industry better understand the dynamics of electronic measurement and what new insights and advantages that electronic measurement offers radio and all radio formats. Additional analyses will be released over the coming weeks and months.

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