BRETT AFFRUNTI
Arbitron Gets An Earful From Minority Broadcasters
As radio rating service Arbitron prepares to switch the way it measures audiences, minority broadcasters are complaining that the new system undercounts their listeners. At issue is whether Arbitron’s Portable People Meter—a PDA-size device that receives encoded signals from stations as selected listeners carry it around—gives short shrift to spots on the dial with black and Latino audiences. The meter replaces a listener-diary system. Prompted by a petition from a group of minority broadcasters, the FCC is now considering an investigation into whether the meter method threatens the viability of urban and Latino stations. Early data show sharp listenership declines at some. According to its critics, the new system’s smaller sampling panel—two-thirds smaller than the diary-keeping panel—doesn’t include enough black and Hispanic participants. Arbitron “hasn’t adequately identified young people—young minority people, in particular—to carry the devices,” says James Winston, Executive Director of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters.
Speaking at hearings on the issue before the City Council in New York, where the meter makes its debut on Oct. 8, Arbitron CEO Steve Morris said those wearing the devices are recruited the same way the diary keepers were. And company spokesman Thom Mocarsky says the number of black panelists “averages 9% above the goal of proportional representation for the 10 markets we have. For Hispanics, it’s 16% above.” (Winston of the black broadcasters’ group counters that the reduced panel size means “you can’t get a statistically reliable” sampling of minority listeners.) Arbitron also says the meters are more accurate than diaries, since they don’t rely on recall and count broadcasts reaching audiences outside the home—in stores, say. “They pick up more stations per listener than the diary does,” says Mocarsky, adding that formats such as talk radio have also seen their ratings decline.
