• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, November 15, 2005

After a couple of years of languishing on the back burner, Nielsen Media Research has suddenly taken an active interest in its option to develop a new TV and radio audience measurement system based on Arbitron's portable people meters. On Monday, Nielsen said it assigned one of its top managers--Jack Oken, general manager of local business--to spearhead a due diligence effort to evaluate the viability of PPMs. Nielsen described it as a "time-intensive" process, and said Oken's regular duties would be temporarily reassigned to another Nielsen executive.

What sparked the sudden impetus isn't exactly clear, but some observers believe it has to do with Arbitron's so-called "Radio First" strategy, which could begin rolling out PPMs in markets 1 through 60 as early as April 1, 2006.

While Arbitron has not formally committed to that rollout scenario, and it remains unclear how it would generate funding for the costly rollout of a radio-only service, it has been openly discussing it in meetings with Wall Street analysts and at industry research conferences.

The rollout plan raises some awkward issues for Nielsen--which remains committed to conventional people meters in the top 10 television markets, but which has discussed the possibility of introducing PPMs in markets 11 through 60.

Nielsen did not put a specific time frame to its accelerated due diligence process, but it said it "adheres to Arbitron's plan for Nielsen to decide by the first quarter of 2006 whether to continue with the PPM project."

To date, Nielsen has been oddly noncommittal to the PPM, despite investing "tens of millions of dollars" supporting its research and development. Nielsen executives maintain that there are a number of technical and research issues associated with PPMs, including whether their audio codes can be accurately detected, as well as the fact that PPMs represent a change in TV audience measurement.

PPMs have also been the subject of debate within the radio industry, which fears the economic impact of the new audience research method for a number of reasons--including the costs associated with the research itself, as well as the fact that it is expected to yield marked shifts in radio audience ratings, including lower ones for some lucrative radio dayparts.

While they represent a number of trade-offs, people meters also are a move toward personalized audience measurement--something advertisers and agency executives have said they are in favor of, because it will give them greater accountability in terms of who is exposed to their ad messages.

In fact, PPMs are at the core of another ambitious research effort-- Arbitron's and VNU's so-called Project Apollo initiative, which next year will begin testing a single-source system that combines Arbitron's PPMs for measuring media exposure with ACNielsen's HomeScan product usage panel.

To date, only two marketers have signed on to sponsor the Apollo test--Procter & Gamble and SC Johnson--but several others are expected to be announced shortly.