Florida Sues Arbitron; Arbitron Bumps Up PPM Date

Arbitron is being sued by the attorney general of Florida, Bill McCollum, who is demanding that the radio ratings company not switch from its paper diary system to measurement by the Portable People Meter, a passive electronic measurement device, on July 16 as scheduled.

Echoing Arbitron's earlier legal tussles with the attorneys general of New York, New Jersey and Maryland, the Florida attorney general's office said the lawsuit -- based on the state's civil rights code -- is intended to avert unwarranted harm to minority-owned broadcasters, which make up a large part of the radio business in the heavily Hispanic state.

In a retread of its earlier dispute with the attorney general of New York State, Arbitron responded by moving up the date when PPM ratings are commercialized from Thursday, July 16 to Tuesday, July 14, trying to present the courts with a fait accompli.

Arbitron made no mention of the Florida attorney general's lawsuit in explaining the decision to move up that date for PPM commercialization, with CEO and president Michael Skarzynski merely remarking: "We are commercializing our Portable People Meter radio ratings service in Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood in order to meet our obligations to our customers and to the radio industry at large."

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While the radio industry in general has long anticipated the move from paper diaries to more accurate electronic measurement, the introduction of Arbitron's PPM ratings has met with a wave of protest from broadcasters targeting minority audiences.

They claim that its sampling methodology significantly under-represents key minority demos, for example, African-American and Hispanic men ages 18-34. They further claim this under-counting leads to big drops in their audience size when Arbitron switches from paper diaries to PPM.

In their publicity battle with Arbitron, minority broadcasters have had great success enlisting high-profile political allies, ranging from New York City Council members, to the attorneys general of New York and New Jersey (who settled their lawsuits against Arbitron in January of this year), to Democratic commissioners on the Federal Communications Commission to Sen. Barack Obama when he was running for president.

In fact, the Florida lawsuit comes as Arbitron fends off criticism (and threats of regulatory action) from Congress, with executives testifying concurrently before the House Judiciary Committee and the FCC.

Separately, Univision -- one of the largest Spanish-language broadcasters in the nation -- has refused to subscribe to Arbitron's PPM service in Miami. It's also refused to encode its signals.

1 comment about "Florida Sues Arbitron; Arbitron Bumps Up PPM Date ".
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  1. Rob Frydlewicz from DentsuAegis, July 15, 2009 at 10:05 a.m.

    Welcome to Florida, state of progress! Next on the attorney general's agenda: investigate switching all public buildings from air conditioning to a fan & block of ice.

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