• December 15, 2005

Arbitron Wednesday disclosed that six "major advertisers" representing a total of $6.4 billion in advertising spending have committed to subscribing to Arbitron's and VNU's 2006 pilot test of Project Apollo, the single-source measurement system combining Arbitron's portable people meter TV and radio ratings system with ACNielsen's household product scanning technology. To date, Procter & Gamble, and SC Johnson have been identified, but Arbitron executives declined to disclose the other marketer's names, what categories they operate in, or how big they are. According to estimates from TNS Media Intelligence, P&G, a long-time supporter of Apollo, likely represents more than half the aggregate ad spending of the six Apollo sponsors. -- Joe Mandese