Thursday, March 16, 2006

ARB's Announcements Are A "So What?" For Country

Arbitron gets proactive...
People Meters start rolling into the top 50 markets and more cash in premiums to improve 18-34 response rates, very soon.

A&O's MICHAEL O'MALLEY:

While we do applaud the idea of surveying cell-only households (country is one of the top four formats among these according the ARB test data), it doesn't look to us like the rest of this is any at all help in preventing the wild swings we see in 25-54 for country or ANY format that targets a 25-54 LIFEGROUP.

Specifically, we don't see how these adjustments encourage more confidence in Arbitron from country stations in Anchorage, Portland or Reno, for example, (where the "center" of the format life group according to Arbitron has been in three completely different 10 year demographic spans in the last three surveys, which of course can not be true!).

In fact, we are actually LESS confident. It looks like a continuation of a policy designed to address primarily males and any household to which five additional dollars would have an impact.

Is one answer better qualitative balance of every sample cell across the board in every surveyed ARB market, not just the ones with horrendous weighting in 18-34 male and 25-34 female cells?

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