• by Erik Sass , March 1, 2007

After receiving accreditation from the Media Rating Council for its Portable People Meter radio ratings service, Arbitron released a schedule Wednesday for the rollout in Houston, the first market to receive it. The announcement is an important step for Arbitron, which is positioning the PPM as a new commercial-ratings currency. But it faces skepticism about its ability to jump-start the service in the top 50 markets in a timely fashion.

Beginning April 5, Arbitron will release PPM reports to stations and agencies that have signed up for the service as "pre-currency" data. However, PPM results won't replace paper-diary measurements until July 18, when Arbitron releases its June 2007 PPM ratings report. The June report will be the first PPM report to be used as currency for media transactions. As indicated, Arbitron is closing the "free" trial period of PPM results for area broadcasters at the end of March.

Arbitron appears unfazed by the recent announcement that rival Media Audit obtained funding for a field test of its smart-phone technology, including backing from industry giant Clear Channel Radio. Arbitron is facing off against Media Audit in an industry review dedicated to finding an electronic measurement system for radio listening. The review is being conducted by an RFP committee led by Clear Channel.

Industry observers speculate that the dispute between Arbitron and Clear Channel over the suitability of PPM results is, in fact, a cover for fierce behind-the-scenes negotiations about the price of results from the system.

Separately, Arbitron also unveiled the results of a "live" case study from Project Apollo, an experimental joint undertaking with AC Nielsen that attempts to correlate media exposure with purchase decisions made by a representative sample of consumers. Project Apollo, which involves a panel of 11,000 consumers in 5,000 households, combines data from Arbitron's PPM with Nielsen Homescan technology to measure multiple kinds of media exposure and determine their influence on purchase decisions.

Although Arbitron and Nielsen tout Apollo as a basis for more accurate media planning, the preliminary results don't suggest it will make media planning any easier. Focusing on purchases of a specific pain reliever among users ages 25-54, Arbitron and Nielsen's data posits that the demographic data currently used to buy and sell cable TV dayparts bears little relation to the number of people who actually buy a particular product.

In fact, fewer than 30% of the dayparts on cable networks delivered the brand "buyer" rating points at approximately the same level as Nielsen's conventional adults 25-54 rating points. Arbitron calculated that using data from Project Apollo, rather than a conventional ad schedule, would allow the specific advertiser in question to garner "a 16 percent increase in the delivery of consumers ages 25-54 who buy the brand."