Arbitron spells out diary benchmarks

0

New benchmarks for diary markets were announced following this week’s meeting of the Arbitron Radio Advisory Council. The company has now supplied details.


Beginning with the current survey in progress, Spring 2009, Arbitron is introducing a sample quality benchmark for Persons aged 18-34 in all diary markets.

For the first 12 months the Diary market Persons 18-34 benchmark will be a Designated Delivery Index (DDI) of 70. Beginning with the 13th month after implementation, the DDI benchmark will be 80. Arbitron calculates DDI by dividing the actual sample size for a given demographic group by its target sample size for that demographic group. A DDI of 100 means the actual sample size equals the sample target for a given month.

“Arbitron remains strongly committed to the Diary markets we serve and to our program of continuous improvement for our Diary service. We thank our Radio Advisory Council for its feedback and we are pleased to announce our new benchmark for Persons 18-34,” said Arbitron President and CEO Michael Skarzynski.

Arbitron also supplied an update on its cell-phone-only initiatives.

The first four weeks of the Spring 2009 survey complete on April 28. Cell-phone-only households are returning diaries to Arbitron now from 151 local markets, the company said. All Diary markets in the continental US, Hawaii, and Alaska are scheduled to include cell-phone-only households by the Fall 2009 survey.

More than a third of a million households have already been contacted to build the address-based sample frame Arbitron is using to include cell-phone-only radio listeners in the Spring 2009 Diary survey.

“We began cell-phone-only household sampling in 151 Diary markets this Spring with the balance planned for Fall 2009. We expect this important step to help improve sample performance especially among young persons,” said Skarzynski.