PPM: Ready for Spanish Radio.

On August 13, 2008 four of the country’s top 10 Hispanic markets, including the number one market, officially received their first pre-currency PPM report. Broadcasters are now seeing that some Spanish stations increase their ratings and rank position significantly in PPM. Arbitron first debuted PPM ratings pre-currency reports in New York last October and while an average of 8 percent of our Hispanic panel has been replaced each month with brand new Hispanics, the ratings results in this market have not changed dramatically. Today, the Hispanic PPM sample has also improved to a point where, for the past several months in New York, it has consistently out-performed the diary on nearly every measure. Our work is never done and we will continue to put forth an earnest effort to work together with Broadcasters and agencies to improve areas that can benefit from it.

At the same time that we look to the future, I want to take this opportunity to point out the facts on PPM samples today;

-In the wave of markets rolling out now, PPM has the largest local market electronic media ratings panel ever maintained. The Hispanic sample size is more than twice the size of the current Nielsen LPM Hispanic panels.

-The Spanish Dominant Hispanic PPM sample across all 10 deployed markets including New York and L.A. is over-representative of the Hispanic population and performs higher than the diary. The average PPM proportionality in June 2008 was 119 percent where 100 is the goal. The diary method achieved 101 percent in the last survey available survey for all of these markets.

– Hispanic Panelists agree to participate in our PPM panels in higher percentages than non-black, non-Hispanics. We cannot say the same thing about the diary service.

– Spanish Dominant PPM panelists participate in higher percentages each day than any other panelists. We cannot say the same thing about the diary service.

– PPM includes individuals in Cell-Phone-Only homes, whereas the diary does not. These panelists tend to be Hispanic and young. The Cell Phone only population is a fast growing segment of the population and will be an increasingly important part of our panel.

– Hispanic 18-34 year olds PPM panelist counts in June are at or above target in 8 out of 9 of our panels. Six are over 100 percent, two are over 97 percent and only Nassau-Suffolk is below target but climbing. The diary service is not performing at this level.

Our Hispanic customers have asked for additional panel characteristics and controls in PPM, such as country of origin, more discrete language weighting by age groups, and in-home, in-person coaching. These measures and controls do not exist in our diary service and they would be yet another way that our electronic service will surpass all former radio ratings collection systems.

Despite the facts noted above, a concern has been raised that PPM “must be fixed” and must “be made right.” Those who have not had an opportunity to see the facts but have seen the headlines in industry trade magazines might assume there is a bias against Hispanics in the ratings. The reality is that in PPM Hispanics have the highest listening levels of any ethnic group. Hispanic stations have among the highest time spent listening in PPM. Hispanic stations total weekly count of listeners increase virtually across the board in PPM.

Rather than asking what is wrong with the ratings, perhaps the better question is, “why don’t my ratings look like the dairy?” The difference in ratings between diary and PPM has been quantified and it is because of the measurement tool. After electronic measurement, the Diary is the best radio survey method available and it does a terrific job of measuring core radio listening habits. Yet, anyone who needs to understand why differences in radio listening exist between diary and PPM need only come to Arbitron headquarters to view how the American public records their listening in the diaries. The diary gets the job done well, but there is better way to deliver more granular and timely results with accountability that advertisers demand. We believe the upgrade to PPM ratings information will be used effectively to improve radio for Hispanic communities and the advertisers wanting to connect with them.

By John Snyder
Vice President, PPM Sales