MRC Smacks down Arbitron, Says ‘Not So Fast’ to PPM

The Media Rating Council failed to give accreditation to Arbitron’s PPM service in Philadelphia and New York in January, Arbitron disclosed yesterday in a filing.

Arbitron has taken several steps to improve its samples in recent months; the MRC outcome was based on an audit that was conducted in Philadelphia in the fall of 2006, and in New York in the summer of 2007, writes Mediaweek. Arbitron believes it has made “significant improvements” in the Philadelphia and New York PPM service since the initial audits.

Arbitron has already delayed the rollout of the commercialization of the PPM in many of its markets in order to make some changes - some of those changes based on feedback from the MRC, the company said in a statement. The MRC plans to look at Arbitron’s planned improvements and said it still believes that electronic measurement services such as the PPM can represent “an improvement over existing non-electronic audience measurements.”

The PPM has received accreditation from the MRC for the Houston market.

Arbitron president of operation, technology and R&D, Owen Charlebois, said, during a previously scheduled conference call with the press to update them on PPM news, that the MRC’s denial of accreditation is not “disruptive,” as some may think, according to Radio Ink.

He pointed out that, by the MRC’s own rules, accreditation is not necessary in order for a ratings service to continue development and rollout.

Earlier this week, Arbitron and Nielsen nixed Project Apollo, a single source market research service that used the PPM and other tools to offer a single-source look at product purchase behavior.