Arbitron

Arbitron Inc.

Type	Public
Traded as	NYSE: ARB
Industry	Media market (research)
Founded	Washington, D.C. (1949)
Headquarters	Columbia, Maryland
Area served	United States
Key people	Bill Kerr CEO
Products	ratings data
Revenue	US$422.31 million(FY 2010)
Operating income	US$85.11 million (FY 2010)
Net income	US$53.29 million (FY 2010)
Total assets	US$238.96 million (FY 2010)
Total equity	US$126.81 million (FY 2010)
Employees	1,625 (Dec 2011)
Website	www.arbitron.com

Arbitron is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by merging with Los Angeles–based Coffin, Cooper, and Clay in the early 1950s. The company's initial business was the collection of broadcast television ratings.

The company changed its name to Arbitron in the mid‑1960s, the namesake of the Arbitron System, a centralized statistical computer with leased lines to viewers' homes to monitor their activity. Deployed in New York, it gave instant ratings data on what people were watching. A reporting board lit up to indicate which homes were listening to which broadcasts.

On December 18, 2012, the Nielsen Company announced that it would acquire Arbitron for $1.26 billion.

Methods

Survey

Arbitron's syndicated radio ratings service collects data by selecting a random sample of a population throughout the United States, primarily in 294 metropolitan areas, using a paper diary service 2‑4 times a year and the Portable People Meter (PPM) electronic audience measurement service 365 days a year.

The term commonly used in the radio industry for these ratings is Arbitron book, a carryover from the era when ratings were published in a softcover report that was mailed to clients. More specifically, in the diary-measured markets these reports were called the "Spring book", "Summer book", "Fall book", and "Winter book". Between these "books", Arbitron releases interim monthly reports called "Arbitrends", which contain data from the previous three months known as "rolling average" reports. The two interim reports would be known, for example, as "Spring, Phase I" and "Spring, Phase II".

Arbitron recruits diary survey respondents to note their listening habits in a seven-day paper diary and mail it back to Arbitron. The respondents are paid a small cash incentive for their participation. Turnaround time for release of data from the end of the survey period is approximately three weeks.

After collection, the data is marketed to radio broadcasters, radio networks, cable companies, advertisers, advertising agencies, out-of-home advertising companies, and the online radio industry. Major ratings products include cume (the cumulative number of unique listeners over a period), average quarter hour (AQH Share - the average number of people listening in a given 15‑minute period), time spent listening (TSL), and market breakdowns by age, gender, and race/ethnicity. It is important to understand that the "cume" only counts a listener once, whereas the AQH is a product of "cume" and time spent listening. For example, if you looked into a room and saw Fred and Jane, then 15 minutes later saw Fred with Sara. The "cume" would be 3 (Fred, Jane, Sara) and the AQH would be 2 (an average of two people in the room in a given 15‑minute period).

Portable People Meter

Responding to requests from its customers — radio broadcasters, ad agencies and advertisers — that expressed their interest in the collection of more accurate ratings data, Arbitron introduced the Portable People Meter (PPM) service in 2007.

The PPM is a wearable portable device much like a pager or cell phone, that electronically gathers inaudible codes that identify the source of a broadcast, such as a radio station. Arbitron recruits and compensates a cross section of consumers to wear the meter for an average of one year and up to two years. The audience estimates generated from each monthly survey is used as the buy/sell currency for radio stations and advertisers/agencies.

As of December 2009, the PPM is currently measured in thirty-three markets including: Houston, Philadelphia, New York, Atlanta, Detroit, Long Island, Middlesex-Somerset-Union, Chicago, Los Angeles, Riverside-San Bernardino, San Francisco, Jacksonville, Baltimore, and San Jose. By 2010, 48 markets are being measured using the PPM.

See also

• ComScore, an internet analytics company with which Arbitron is partnering to analyze cross-media management
• List of most-listened-to radio programs
• List of United States radio markets
• Nielsen ratings (for television programs)
• Radio & Records, periodical that published Arbitron data for commercial stations
• Radio Research Consortium, non-profit corporation which publishes Arbitron data for non-commercial stations
• The Media Audit
• Time spent listening (TSL), one of the metrics measured

External links

• Arbitron Official website
• Arbitron SEC Filings
• Ratings - Persons 12+ from Arbitron for commercial stations
• Ratings - Persons 12+ from FMQB for commercial stations
• Ratings - Persons 12+ from Radio and Records for commercial stations
• List of U.S. Radio Markets (ranked by size)
• Audio interview of Ernest H. Clay, ARB's Research and Production Director on WGN's discussion show Your Right To Say It