The Portable People Meter (PPM™) provides audience measurement services to countries around the world. The PPM is a unique electronic audience measurement system capable of measuring any broadcast media, from radio and TV to Podcasts downloaded from the Internet. This mobile-phone-sized device that consumers wear throughout the day works by detecting identification codes that can be embedded in the audio portion of any broadcast transmission.
The Portable People Meter can provide new and improved measures of audiences that aren't available from more traditional measurement services. It is designed to meet the challenges of digital and satellite broadcasting.
Arbitron has entered into commercial agreements and granted licenses to international media information services companies to use the PPM technology for audience measurement services.
For example, BBM Canada, the Canadian industry cooperative for audience ratings, uses the PPM as the official ratings system for French-language television in the markets of Quebec and Montreal. TNS, an international company headquartered in the United Kingdom, has a license to use the PPM system and its audio encoding technology for radio and television audience measurement in selected countries in Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Today, TNS uses the PPM technology for a variety of audience measurement services in Belgium, Norway, Singapore, Kazakhstan and Kenya.
Arbitron has also entered into evaluation agreements that have enabled audience measurement companies in numerous countries the opportunity to test the PPM system.