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Radio One Agrees to PPM, Clear Channel Lone Philly Holdout

Radio One, the largest radio broadcasting company that primarily targets African American and urban listeners, has agreed to encode its radio stations in Philadelphia and Los Angeles for the Arbitron Portable People Meter audience measurement services, Arbitron announced today.

The PPM electronic audience measurement technology is scheduled to begin collecting audience estimates in Philadelphia on January 11, 2007 and in Los Angeles in January 2008. An encoding agreement is separate and distinct from any agreement to subscribe to the Portable People Meter ratings services.

With Radio One agreeing to encoding, Clear Channel, with six stations, is the lone holdout in the Philadelphia market, according to Mediaweek. Stations that are not encoded will not be included in the ratings when the PPM becomes the ratings currency in Philadelphia beginning March 8.

Unencoded stations create a difficult situation for buyers, as the ratings will offer an incomplete picture of the market. Some agencies, such as Carat, have said they will not buy time from the unencoded stations, and have suggested that some advertisers might avoid the market altogether.

Monthly ratings in Philadelphia will begin being reported by Arbitron in April.