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Arbitron will begin issuing sample guarantees beginning Oct. 1, in response to complaints by clients that the radio measurement company failed to meet in-tab sample sizes in Houston and Philadelphia in July.
The failure may in fact have been due to steps Arbitron had taken to remedy the situation, said CEO Steve Morris (via MediaPost). “While sample sizes in Houston and Philadelphia debuted at or close to target, the total panel size dropped over the summer as we introduced a new tough love panel-management approach,” he says. As Arbitron dropped panelists at a faster-than-expected pace, the company was unable to recruit and install new panelists quickly enough.
Arbitron is recruiting new panelists in Houston and Philly and hopes to have the in-tab sample sizes up by early October. After the sample guarantees are implemented, partial refunds will be issued if sample sizes aren’t met.
Some of Arbitron’s biggest clients apparently remain skeptical, despite the guarantees, with Cox CEO Bob Neil pointing out, in an email that was forwarded to Radio & Records, that similar problems meeting age demo targets have been a problem for Arbitron’s paper diary service.
All sectors of the media business will suffer from the weakened economy in 2008 and 2009, with a slump in local advertising particularly hurting newspapers and local TV, according to a new projection from Goldman Sachs.
Broadcast nets will experience…
The New York Times is shuttering its International Herald Tribune site; NYTimes.com will soon host the international news normally reserved for its sister website.
The move is not about cost savings, but rather about growth, NYTimes.com general manager Vivian Schiller…
Unilever’s Vaseline set forth on an unusual research project in a small town in Alaska. Setting up a storefront, the company began giving away free bottles of lotion and asking recipients to name the person who had recommended they come…
Meet the Press, the show hosted by Tim Russert for 17 years before his death last June, is beginning to slip in ratings.
Last month, CBS’s Face the Nation pulled ahead of Meet the Press for the first time in two…
Bloggers collectively create nearly one million blog posts each day, and half of bloggers believe blogs will be a primary source of news and entertainment in the next five years, according to Technorati’s 2008 State of the Blogosphere Report, MarketingCharts writes.…
Wal-Mart and Costco reported same-store gains in September, with sales rising 2.4% and 9% respectively. Sales at Target stores open at least a year fell 3%, writes Retailer Daily.
Below, fiscal results from the discount retail giants:
Sales of food and…
