Clear Channel Radio inks ‘people meter’ deal

NEW YORK – Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) today announced a multi-year agreement to provide Clear Channel Radio with “Portable People Meter” radio ratings in 46 markets, as Arbitron rolls out those services.
The agreement, which runs through the end of 2011, also extends the companies’ current contract for diary-based radio ratings in those markets until Arbitron converts them to PPM ratings.
The PPM is a meter about the size of a small cell phone that “detects inaudible codes embedded in the audio portion of media and entertainment content delivered by broadcasters, content providers and distributors,” Arbitron said. “At the end of the day, the meter is placed in a docking station that extracts the codes and sends them to a central computer.”
Carried throughout the day by randomly selected survey participants, the PPM enables Arbitron to measure when and where they watch television, listen to radio and interact with other forms of entertainment. By the end of 2010, the rating service intends to deploy the PPM in the nation’s top 50 markets, replacing the paper diary system it has employed since 1965.
Clear Channel Radio is Arbitron’s largest radio ratings subscriber, representing about 19 percent of the company’s revenue last year. Its broadcasts reach more than 110 million listeners per week via its AM, FM and HD digital radio stations, Motorola’s iRadio cell-phone service, mobile-navigation devices, the Internet and podcasts.
The company is a division of San Antonio-based media and entertainment giant Clear Channel Communications Inc. (NYSE: CCU). Its properties include local radio stations WHJY-FM, WHJJ-FM, WSNE-FM and WHJJ-AM.
Additional information is available at www.clearchannel.com and