Leading Spanish Language Broadcasters Critical Of Arbitron’s Announcement Of Language Weighting.

The nation’s top Spanish-language radio broadcasters criticized a recent, open-ended Arbitron announcement in favor of using language preference weighting to tabulate local radio listening.

Although the broadcasters – Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation, Spanish Broadcasting Systems, Entravision Communications Corp. and Radio Unica Communications Corp. – long have demanded that Arbitron commit to language preference weighting to ensure an accurate accounting of Spanish-language radio listeners, they claim Arbitron’s new position means nothing if the audience measuring service is not ready to remedy the problem.

Weighting samples for age, gender and geography is standard practice in sampling technology, and long has been used by Arbitron in order to ensure proper balance. Yet proper language usage benchmarks, which are critical in weighting sample results, have never been a priority for the service.

The broadcasters argue that the failure to acknowledge language preference undermines the Hispanic radio industry because it gives a false measure of the listening habits of Spanish-language radio audiences. To support their claims, they point out that Nielsen, considered to be the industry standard, committed to language weighting years ago, and has the systems in place to do so. Two recent independent surveys sponsored by Arbitron comparing Nielsen’s and Arbitron’s language usage estimates, indicated that Arbitron’s estimates were lower.

Arbitron claims its software systems, designed in the 1960’s and 1970’s, cannot support language weighting, and developing new software could take several years. Furthermore, in recent meetings, Arbitron told the Spanish-language broadcasters it still had not determined how the weighting methodology would be implemented.

“It is inconceivable that Arbitron will be able to make good on its promise to begin weighting language preference for radio listening without a defined timeline. The economics of radio are built around a system of ratings and audience delivery information that must meet an acceptable level of credibility and right now that isn’t happening,” said Jeffery Liberman, President, Entravision Communications Corporation’s Radio Division.

“We believe Arbitron’s survey methodology is defective,” said Bill Tanner, EVP Programming for Spanish Broadcasting System. “And much the same way as other industries are forced to recall defective products, Arbitron should recall its current methodology or immediately move to correct it.”

As important as is correcting Arbitron’s methodology, the Spanish-language radio broadcasters say Arbitron’s sample sizes also must be expanded in order to have sufficient responses on which to weight by language.

“Arbitron needs to expand their sample sizes and weight their results against the population in order to properly reflect the Hispanic market. It is as simple as that. The ratings continue to be unreliable with each day that goes by without Spanish dominant weighting. Arbitron needs to begin this weighting process sooner, not later,” stated Gary Stone, Senior Vice President & Chief Operating Officer of Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation.

“Arbitron has known about their deficiencies in surveying Hispanics for years, but we believe Arbitron has avoided making the appropriate changes for cost reasons and in order not to upset general market broadcasters,” said Joaquin F. Blaya, Chairman & CEO of Radio Unica Communications Corp. “This continued apathy towards the Hispanic market can only be described as discriminatory.”