 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Media market (research) |
| Founded | Washington, D.C. (1949) |
| Headquarters | |
Area served | United States |
Key people | Sean Creamer, CEO |
| Products | Ratings data |
| Revenue |  US$422.31 million(FY 2010)[1] |
| US$85.11 million(FY 2010)[1] | |
| US$53.29 million(FY 2010)[1] | |
| Total assets | US$238.96 million(FY 2010)[1] |
| Total equity | US$126.81 million(FY 2010)[1] |
| Owner | The Nielsen Company |
Number of employees | 1,625(Dec 2011)[1] |
| Website | www.nielsen.com/audio |
Nielsen Audio (formerlyArbitron) is aconsumer research company in the United States that collects listener data onradio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as theAmerican Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by merging withLos Angeles-based Coffin, Cooper, and Clay in the early 1950s.[2] The company's initial business was the collection of broadcasttelevision ratings.
The company changed its name to Arbitron in the mid‑1960s, the namesake of the Arbitron System, a centralizedstatisticalcomputer withleased lines to viewers' homes to monitor their activity. Deployed inNew York City, it gave instant ratings data on what people were watching. A reporting board lit up to indicate which homes were listening to which broadcasts.[3] For years, Arbitron was a part ofControl Data Corporation (CDC) and in 1992, it became a part ofCeridian Corporation before the company was split in 2001. The then-current Arbitron was formed from the renaming of the old Ceridian Corporation while the spin-off firm took the Ceridian Corporation name and acted as accounting successor.[4]
On December 18, 2012,The Nielsen Company announced that it would acquire Arbitron, its only competitor, for US$1.26 billion.[5][6] The acquisition closed on September 30, 2013, and the company was re-branded as Nielsen Audio. As a condition of the deal to allow amonopoly, Nielsen mustlicense its ratings data and technology to athird party for eight years.[7]
Arbitron's syndicated radio ratings service collects data by selecting a random sample of a population throughout the United States, primarily in 294 metropolitan areas, using a paper diary service 2‑4 times a year and thePortable People Meter (PPM) electronicaudience measurement service 365 days a year.[citation needed]
The term commonly used in the radio industry for these ratings isArbitron book, a carryover from the era when ratings were published in a softcover report that was mailed to clients. More specifically, in the diary-measured markets these reports were called the "Spring book", "Summer book", "Fall book", and "Winter book". Between these "books", Arbitron releases interim monthly reports called "Arbitrends", which contain data from the previous three months known as "rolling average" reports. The two interim reports would be known, for example, as "Spring, Phase I" and "Spring, Phase II".[citation needed]
Arbitron recruits diary survey respondents to note their listening habits in a seven-day paper diary and mail it back to Arbitron. The respondents are paid a small cash incentive for their participation. Turnaround time for release of data from the end of the survey period is approximately three weeks.[citation needed]
After collection, the data is marketed to radio broadcasters,radio networks,cable TV companies, advertisers,advertising agencies,out-of-home advertising companies, and theonline radio industry.[8] Major ratings products includecume (the cumulative number of unique listeners over a period), average quarter hour (AQH share – the average number of people listening in a given 15‑minute period),time spent listening (TSL), and market breakdowns by age, gender, and race/ethnicity. The "cume" only counts a listener once, whereas the AQH is a product of "cume" and time spent listening. For example, if you looked into a room and saw Fred and Jane, then 15 minutes later saw Fred with Sara. The "cume" would be 3 (Fred, Jane, Sara) and the AQH would be 2 (an average of two people in the room in a given 15‑minute period).[citation needed]
Responding to requests from its customers—radio broadcasters, ad agencies and advertisers—that expressed their interest in the collection of more accurate ratings data, Arbitron introduced thePortable People Meter (PPM) service in 2007.[9]
The PPM is a wearable portable device, much like apager ormobile phone, that electronically gatherssubaudible codes that identify the source of a broadcast, such as aradio station. Arbitron recruits and compensates a cross-section of consumers to wear the meter for an average of one year and up to two years. The audience estimates generated from each monthly survey are used as the buy/sell currency for radio stations and advertisers/agencies.
As of December 2009, the PPM was measured in 33media markets, includingHouston,Philadelphia,Pittsburgh,New York City,Atlanta,Detroit,Long Island,Middlesex-Somerset-Union,Chicago,Los Angeles,Riverside-San Bernardino,San Francisco,Jacksonville,Baltimore, andSan Jose.[10] By 2010, 48 markets are being measured using the PPM.[11][12]