PPM Meets 'Virtually All' Benchmarks In December
January 5, 2010: In the customary conference call to discuss the company's PPM results, Arbitron SVP/Marketing Bill Rose said the metrics in December "probably looked stronger this month than I can recall at any time." In December -- which doesn't include the separate "holiday" ratings period -- Arbitron reported meeting or exceeding its benchmarks for Designated Delivery Index (actual sample compared to the target) in virtually all metrics.
The Sample Performance Indicator -- an equivalent to response rate -- was up 28 percent in the 33 commercialized PPM markets December, compared to the 14-market average in December 2008. Those 33 markets, Arbitron said, represent about 60 percent of the ad revenue in the markets it measures.
Rose reiterated Arbitron's plans to increase its sample, with the 18-54 sample size set to be up 8 percent by the end of this year and 10 percent by mid-2011.
Improvement Initiatives
Director/Panel & Field Services Nancy Weissman talked about Arbitron's continuous improvement program, saying, "We've made a lot of progress, but we're just getting started," with some initiatives put in place just a month or so ago. She pointed in particular to the six new panel regions, which, she said, can help Arbitron respond more quickly to potential problems: "If we see that there's something brewing, we can put together a technical plan and visit households that are hard to reach."
Weissman pointed in particular to a program that began in September with automated phone messages that go out when there are technical faults and to offer compliance coaching, and Arbitron has since introduced automated e-mails that address the same issues. In November, coaching via a live chat function began being offered through the panelist website, and Weissman said that's working well and will be officially launched soon. There is also a new "prioritization logic" for calling problem households to get to the most "challenging" households first.
Rose then gave more DDI details, noting that in December the average DDI in the 33 live markets was 108, or 8 percent over the target of 100. The averages were 103 for 18-54s and 93 for 18-34s, and, he noted, all 18-34 demos came in over 90. He said, "We're not at the promised land yet, but we're making a lot of progress."
In the 19 markets where black people make up 10 percent or more of the population, the black DDI averaged 114 in December, and in the 22 markets where Hispanic listeners are broken out, the Hispanic DDI was 112, with Spanish-dominant at 111 and English-dominant at 117. The black 18-34 demo showed a record-high average DDI of 91 in 19 markets, up 14 points since June.
In-Tab Improvements
VP/Research Methods & Quality Beth Webb discussed improvements to the in-tab rates, saying the average 6+ in-tab rate has moved up 4.3 points since June, to 77.9 percent. In specific demos, the black 18-34 in-tab rate is up 7.6 points since June, to 71.4, while the rate for Hispanic 18-34s is up 3.7 points over the same period, to 73.8. For other 18-34s, the number is up 4 points, to 71.4.
For cellphone-only households, Arbitron plans to have 20 percent of the sample coming from CPO households by the end of this year, and hit its target of 15 percent by the end of 2009. Among 18-34s, 26 percent were CPO households in December, and Webb said she expects that to rise in proportion as the CPO sample increases.
Spanish Stations Move Up
In talking about the December results, Rose looked at a few Spanish-language stations that are doing better in the PPM than under the diary, citing, among others, Spanish Contemporary WMGE/Miami, which is number 4 in the PPM compared to 19th in the diary; KWID/Las Vegas, third in PPM and 18th with the diary; and Regional Mexican KLEY/San Antonio, 12th under PPM, up from 23rd with diary measurement.
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