• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, November 1, 2007

Arbitron has promised to issue “sample guarantees” beginning Oct. 1 after being hit with a raft of complaints from clients. The company said in a letter made public in September that it will issue partial refunds to subscribers if samples fall below the target size for their market. The size of the refunds has yet to be determined.

Referring to the radio measurement company’s failures to meet in-tab sample sizes in Houston and Philadelphia in July, Arbitron CEO Steve Morris implied that early steps taken to remedy the situation may actually have made it worse.

“While sample sizes in Houston and Philadelphia debuted at or close to target, the total panel size dropped over the summer as we introduced a new tough love panel-management approach.”

Though Arbitron is moving to recruit new panelists in Houston and Philadelphia and hopes to have the in-tab samples up to speed by early October, refund talk suggests problems may persist into the fall.

Despite the promise of sample guarantees and rebates, some of Arbitron’s biggest clients remain skeptical. In an e-mail forwarded to Radio & Records, a widely read trade publication, Cox CEO Bob Neil recalled that similar problems meeting age demo targets have plagued Arbitron’s established paper diary service.