Arbitron's sampling methodology is FAR more important than Mr or Mrs DePetro's misdeeds

[Dan.Strassberg]

I originally posted this at Radio-Info.com's Boston board.

Why is everyone giving Arbitron a free pass on this fiasco? Let's
assume that whoever falsified his or her identity for the purposes of
the survey was smart enough to give an address with a different
"apartment number" for each of the six "people" who received a diary.
That would still mean that Arbitron provided diaries to six "people"
who lived in what Arbitron would have had to believe was one building
(a six-unit apartment building that was, in fact, a single-family
house). It makes no sense that Arbitron should have furnished diaries
to six people who lived in the same building--even if the company
honstly believed that each one lived in a different apartment and thus
that no two were members of the same household.

Having six people who live in the same building as part of a total
sample that had to be less than 100 should pretty obviously invalidate
the claim that the sample was statistically representative of the
market population. And BTW, it would make no difference if the survey
had used the PPM or diaries. If Arbitron can send diaries to six
people that it believes live in the same "apartment" building, it can
also send meters to six people who live in the same building. Given
the small size of the sample that is being used to represent the
market population, I very much doubt whether Arbitron could justify
sending meters to six people who live in the same apartment bulding in
New York City, where the sample size would be several times the size
of the Providence sample!

The radio execs (and I'm not referring just to radio execs in
Providence; I mean radio execs nationwide) who let Arbitron get away
with this nonsense should get together and sue Arbitron over its use
of what appears to be obviously flawed sampling methodology. The
problem is deeper than the accuracy of diaries; the problem is what
appears to be a totally invalid sampling method!

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367