Posted by The Debate on September 30, 2008 at 09:42:56:
In Reply to: Re: Obama asks for delay in PPM roll-out posted by Nobama on September 30, 2008 at 07:33:54:
Don't forget, Dick Durbin was also on the letter so this was a joint thing.
However, I would put my money on WGCI management sending a letter to Obama's camp. Since WGCI's #s have shown dramatic drops in the pre-currency. It would make sense. The people who have a real problem with PPM are the urban and ethnic stations that are used to getting the obscure special weighting that the old diary method brought.
In the old diary system, because of a problem with getting big enough sample sizes, if you are an 18 y/o black male in a cell phone only house, your diary is worth about 10 times what a 50 y/o white female's is.
In the PPM world, Arbitron removed most of the weighting with the promise that it has far increased sample size.
So now numbers are showing that the weighting significantly overcompensated what many station's ratings should have been. In markets where this is a problem, the argument is being made that urban/ethnic stations are being undervalued because sample sizes are not weighted.
Should Arbitron delay the rollout of PPM and show "proof" that the new system is truthful, meanwhile continuing to use a system that is fundamentally much more flawed than PPM itself?
Therein lies the debate.