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Arbitron will begin rolling out its portable people meter measurement service in Houston in July, with the top 10 markets following Houston by the fall of 2008 and the rest of the top 50 within three years after that, according to Mediapost. Only two radio broadcasters - Spanish Broadcasting and Beasley Broadcasting - have committed to using the PPMs, though 18 of the nation’s major agencies ad agencies and one national advertiser, Wendy’s International, are already onboard and most large radio buyers have endorsed the service, Mediaweek writes.
The announcement comes less than two weeks after Nielsen Media Research backed out of a joint venture with Arbitron to commercialize a PPM-based ratings system for television. Arbitron president and CEO Steve Morris said that Nielsen’s decision left Arbitron free to focus on radio’s needs “without having to negotiate trade-offs to accommodate television requirements.”
Radio groups are balking at the PPM because of the 40 to 65 percent cost increase over the current diary based service.
Meanwhile, Clear Channel is searching for an alternative to the PPMs, having issued a request for proposals for an electronic radio ratings service. Yesterday, Clear Channel announced it had narrowed the field to three candidates: Arbitron, Mediamark Research Inc., and Media Audit.
Philadelphia, the first city tested for the PPM, will be the second PPM market in the rollout. A schedule for the rollout can be found here.
Though off-air online and experiential advertising grew modestly as a part of the overall radio revenue pie, and election-related political ads increased in Q3, total radio ad revenues were down 9% to $4.97 billion for Q3 and down 10% for…
Glamour magazine is running its photo of Britney Spears not only on the cover of the U.S. edition, but on the covers in seven other countries, as well.
Britney will grace Russia, Sweden and Greece’s editions of Glamour, among others.…
Titan Worldwide has signed a five-year deal with the Delaware River Port Authority to manage out-of-home advertising for the Port Authority Transit corp.
The contract covers advertising on PATCO’s rail service and stations between Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, writes Mediaweek.…
Publicis has acquired full-service agency W&K Communications, continuing its Asia expansion that began several years ago.
W&K will be pulled under the umbrella of Publicis’s Burnett agency network, and will be renamed Leo Burnett Beijing Advertising, writes Adweek.
Other recent Publicis…
With only four weeks separating Thanksgiving and Christmas this year, Cyber Monday One (December 1) and Cyber Monday Two (December 
may command a greater share of online sales than they have in years past - thus increasing the importance…
Top American non-luxury auto brands received higher ratings and less negative comments from online consumers than competing Japanese brands, according to an analysis of consumer opinions collected from automotive review websites by Biz360, MarketingCharts reports.
The research, which aggregated a year’s…
