Accuratings, Arbitron

[LJNF40D@prodigy.com (BUMP MARTIN)]

> On Mon, 26 May 1997, Steve Sawyer wrote:
>  
> > Person comes home from work, checks the mailbox and sees the
Arbitron 
> > diary in it.  Looks at it for a minute and upon walking in the house

> > promptly gives it to his 13 year old son, thinking "he listens to 
> > music... I don't have the time".
> 

Then Ron Landry wrote...

> The trouble with this is that younger-skewing stations usually do
better in
> AccuRatings than in Arbitron.  
> 
(snip)
> Despite this, we ended up subscribing to AccuRatings.  Their sample
size is
> higher than Arbitron's, and AccuRatings methodology made more sense to
us. 

Before we 'canonize' AccuRatings...they have their problems as well.  

AccuRatings depends on phone call inquiries made in the evening between
6-8PM.  Asking people to recall their listening habits for the last 24
hours.  

What does well?  Younger skewing stations with BIG image handles...

What does poorly, stations with strong night shows.  Becasue while
people will remember what they heard on the way home in aft-drive...
possibly middays at work...and what they woke up to...They rarely can
recall what they listened to the night before...almost 22 hours ago.  So
Brudnoy, Magic, EEI...or any station with special nite-programming.  

Also, do you think that calling people between 6-8PM  and asking them to
recall 24 hours of listening is a good way to measure audience?


> That doesn't change the fact that most ad agencies rely exclusively on
> Arbitron. 

Every now and then some big station will do a very public 'break' with
Arbitron...citing over-inflated costs, sample size, etc.  WHDH comes to
mind somewhere in the 80's.
Seems that the come back to the ARB fold very 'quietly'....

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