There will be no rapid-fire FCC investigation of Arbitron’s PPM technology, as requested by the FCC’s own Advisory Committee on Diversity for Communications in the Digital Age. The reason being cited is that the request was not conducted openly and did not allow for public participation in the proceeding.
Arbitron reacted to the news with strong objections to allegations in “the trade press” that the FCC decision was the result of back room maneuvering on its own part. It called the allegations “an insult” both to the integrity of the FCC and Arbitron.
“Over the past several months, Arbitron has aggressively reached out to meet with many advocacy groups and has also hosted several FCC Commissioners at its Columbia, Maryland Research and Technology Center to demonstrate how the PPM electronically produces objective, unbiased audience estimates. Arbitron is happy to continue its dialogue with the minority community and the FCC about the advantages the Portable People Meter brings to radio. Experience has shown that PPM ratings are more reliable than systems that rely on memory and are prone to human error and bias.”
RBR/TVBR observation: We were not among those suggesting any untoward activity on the part of Arbitron. As a matter of fact, we tend to wonder if ratings matters truly fall under FCC jurisdiction, as CBS suggested. Our only comment was that the chance of a report being suggested in early July with a due date of 8/15/08 just wasn’t going to happen under any circumstances. And in that prediction, we were 100% correct.
