Data Processing Error Affects Houston PPM Numbers, Briefly After reports that there had been a dramatic decline in Portable People Meter "carry rates" in the Houston market, Arbitron SVP/Press & Investor Relations Thom Mocarsky released a statement blaming a "data processing error" that affected the sample report for the week of July 26-Aug. 1. "There was no precipitous decline in panelist cooperation in Houston for that week," Mocarsky said.
Mocarsky explained that a file used to process weekly cume was incompletely loaded and the exposure records for nearly 200 PPM panelists were left out of the week's in-tab. "No exposure records have been lost," he added.
PPM data for the affected week will be reprocessed, Mocarsky said, adding, "The average quarter-hour estimates and the daily cume estimates are not likely to change. These estimates are based on the average daily in-tab sample, which appears to be correctly reported on the sample composition."
