• January 11, 2007

Arbitron began measuring radio audience listening in Philadelphia today with its Portable People Meter (PPM), a passive electronic measurement device touted by the company as a replacement for old-fashioned paper diaries. After a two-month demonstration period, Philadelphia will be the first market to get PPM ratings on a subscription basis, beginning March 15th.

Radio stations representing about two-thirds of Philadelphia's radio ad spending have begun encoding signals to be measurable by PPM, including Beasley, CBS Radio, Greater Media, Nassau Broadcasting Partners LP, Millennium Radio Group, Radio One, Inner City Broadcasting Corp., University of Pennsylvania and NextMedia Group Inc.

However, the nation's leading radio broadcaster, Clear Channel Radio, is not encoding its Philadelphia station signals for PPM measurement. In recent months, Clear Channel has sparred with Arbitron, media agencies, advertisers and other radio networks over its refusal to begin encoding. --Erik Sass