• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, July 19, 2012

Radio ratings firm Arbitron scored a big win this week with the announcement that it has received accreditation from the Media Rating Council for its Portable People Meter ratings service in five media markets nationwide, including some of the nation’s biggest.

The MRC granted Arbitron’s ratings from PPM, a passive electronic measurement device, accreditation in Los Angeles, Baltimore, Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Riverside-San Bernardino and San Antonio.
 
This marks the first time the MRC has granted accreditation to PPM ratings in L.A., Baltimore and San Antonio. The other markets in California and Florida are receiving accreditation again after it was revoked by the MRC in January 2012. No word yet whether the MRC plans to grant accreditation to PPM ratings in Cleveland, Portland, and Salt Lake City-Ogden-Provo, where accreditation was also withdrawn earlier this year.
 
The latest accreditations represent another step toward Arbitron’s declared long-term goal of gaining accreditation for PPM ratings in every major media market across the U.S. where it is operational. Arbitron hopes this will help lay to rest some of the earlier controversy surrounding PPM ratings, which some minority broadcasters alleged underrepresented their audiences, including African-American and Hispanic listeners.
 
In January of this year accreditation was withdrawn in the markets listed above, partly because an audit committee reviewing 2011 PPM results “showed certain issues related to internal controls of the service and declines in service performance metrics,” according to the typically circumspect MRC notice.

Arbitron later disclosed that the MRC revoked the accreditation in those markets because response rates among panel participants had fallen off.
 
In total, Arbitron still has 34 markets where PPM is operational without MRC accreditation.