• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, June 24, 2008

A group of six leading radio companies--including Clear Channel, Cox Radio, Cumulus, Inner City, Radio One and Saga--sent another letter to Arbitron reiterating their complaints about the company's portable people meter, a passive electronic measurement device that is scheduled to replace its antiquated paper diaries this year. The basic point: "Speaking as the vast majority of the industry, our confidence in the system has not been fully restored as of this writing."

In their letter the companies ticked off a list of flaws that have not yet been remedied, in their estimation, including continuing failure to meet sample sizes in the key 18-34 and 18-54 demos, where they judge Arbitron's guarantee of 80% of target size to be insufficient.

To address this concern, the radio groups repeated their suggestion that Arbitron cut its 6-11 demos and hand over the meters to more participants in the 18+ samples. As far as the measurement of under-12 listening, the letter opines: "The vast majority of the radio industry never asked for, never wanted, and still has no need for it."

Above all, the radio groups repeated their demand that Arbitron obtain accreditation for PPM from the Media Rating Council by the end of June, 2009 in at least one market outside Houston, where it has already received MRC accreditation. The most likely candidates for such accreditation are Philadelphia--where PPM is already serving as commercial currency--and New York, one of the next big markets scheduled to get commercial ratings.

Not everyone in the radio business agreed with the letter, however. CBS Radio issued a statement supporting Arbitron's schedule for commercializing PPM in a number of major markets over the next six months. CBS countered: "We do not believe that delaying commercialization of PPM data is in the best interest of the industry," adding that it has "every confidence in Arbitron that they will continue to improve the service and deliver us information that will help elevate our accountability with our clients."

Emmis also declined to sign the letter, according to Radio Ink, which quoted president Rick Cummings as saying: "We did not agree that a further postponement of PPM currency was in the best interests of the industry." However, he also added that "Arbitron needs to continue to raise the bar in areas like 18-34 DDI and response and compliance rates. We urge Arbitron to continue improving those, meaningfully, as PPM becomes official currency this fall."