Radio Ratings Get More Scrutiny

A congressional committee has launched an inquiry into a local company's new system for gauging listenership of radio stations and whether it leaves out minority households. Rep Edolphus Towns (D-NY) chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said some radio companies are complaining that a high-tech approach used by Columbia-based ratings company Arbitron to measure the size and demographics of listenership, does not adequately represent minority listeners. During the past two years, Arbitron has switched how it measures listenership. Where survey participants once wrote down their radio-listening habits in paper journals, they now carry an electronic device, called the Portable People Meter, to do it automatically. The new system has caused turmoil in the radio industry; many stations that were popular under the former system have seen their ratings plummet under the new one. Arbitron says the devices give advertisers a more accurate and detailed look at a radio station's audience size, but some radio companies are complaining that the PPM service fails to include minority listeners.