• by David Goetzl , November 9, 2011

Arbitron COO Sean Creamer said this week the radio measurement company is girding for the competitive market of providing a widely appreciated cross-platform measurement system. The company may have a leg up, however, if a four-screen model takes hold, he indicated.

Marketers these days think in terms of three screens -- TV, computer and mobile -- but Creamer indicated that radio has been largely and mistakenly shunted aside and the medium deserves a “more prominent” place in the discussion.

Arbitron, of course, offers the dominant radio currency through portable people meters (PPMs) and diaries.

Speaking at an investor event, Creamer did acknowledge that Arbitron will have to bulk up its Internet measurement capabilities -- and to a lesser degree, mobile -- to compete with the likes of Nielsen in the multi-screen sphere. (Arbitron purchased a Finnish company this summer that specializes in mobile measurement.)

He added that this early in the multiplatform tracking movement  "there is no provider, including us today, that has the complete cross-platform solution."

Creamer said he believes cross-platform data will be more important as an insight and guidance tool rather than for establishing a currency.

For Arbitron, cross-platform offers the chance to develop a second significant revenue stream propelled by its PPMs, where it has invested heavily in development.

Separately, Creamer said the company is also prepping for a need to measure increasing Internet radio consumption. "Our objective is first and foremost to make sure we’re in a position to measure radio however it's distributed," he said.

Internet radio measurement will likely require obtaining server-side data and log files to be integrated with the PPM and diary data, he said.