• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, September 6, 2007

Responding to a wave of complaints from clients, Arbitron has promised to issue "sample guarantees" beginning Oct. 1, the company said in a letter made public on Tuesday. After that date, Arbitron will issue partial refunds to subscribers if samples fall below the target size for their market. The size of the refunds has yet to be determined.

Referring to the radio measurement company's failures to meet in-tab sample sizes in Houston and Philadelphia in July, Arbitron CEO Steve Morris implied that early steps taken to remedy the situation may actually have made it worse.

"While sample sizes in Houston and Philadelphia debuted at or close to target, the total panel size dropped over the summer as we introduced a new tough love panel-management approach. As we began removing panelists at a faster pace, we were unable to recruit and install new panelists quickly enough to offset the loss."

While Arbitron is moving to recruit new panelists in Houston and Philadelphia and hopes to have the in-tab samples up to speed by early October, refund talk suggests problems may persist into the fall. The size of the refunds will be determined by Arbitron before Oct. 1 through discussions with its Radio Advisory Council, composed of reps from its leading clients.

Despite the promise of sample guarantees and rebates, some of Arbitron's biggest clients remain skeptical. In an email forwarded to Radio & Records, a widely read trade publication, Cox CEO Bob Neil recalled that similar problems meeting age demo targets have plagued Arbitron's established paper diary service.

"Such a 'guarantee' exists now on the diary service. But, if you look carefully to what's been happening, the 18-54 sample has been a disaster in many diary markets, but somehow Arbitron has magically avoided paying a rebate because of huge 'increases' in the 55-plus sample."