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Arbitron and Médiamétrie Sign Agreement for Portable
People Meter Trials in France 04.08.03
Market Trials of New Audience Measurement System to Begin in Second Quarter
NEW YORK, April 8, 2003 - Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) today announced that Médiamétrie—the provider of TV, radio, internet and cinema audience measurement in France—has signed a license agreement that will enable the independent media measurement company to evaluate Arbitron's Portable People Meter system in Paris.
The Portable People Meter (PPM) is a new technology being developed by Arbitron that can measure audiences of cable and satellite television broadcasts as well as broadcasts from terrestrial, satellite and Internet radio stations. It is currently undergoing a U.S. market trial in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and has been selected as a media measurement tool in a number of countries around the world.
The two-year agreement will enable Médiamétrie to evaluate the PPM encoding system and the willingness of Parisians to keep the pager-sized PPM device with them as they go about their daily routines. Médiamétrie will also appraise the radio and television ratings from the PPM and compare the ratings to the current audience measurement systems -set-top people meters for TV and day-after telephone recall for radio-used in Paris.
"The Portable People Meter can give Médiamétrie an ideal measurement solution for multiple media, which will help them meet the needs of their key customers—television and radio," said Steve Morris, president and chief executive officer, Arbitron Inc. "We look forward to working with them to establish the Portable People Meter as the audience measurement methodology of choice for the dynamic French media marketplace."
Jacqueline Aglietta, chairman and managing director, Médiamétrie, said, "This agreement offers Médiamétrie an excellent opportunity to confirm its interest in a new concept of television and radio audience measurement. We always work to provide our customers with audience measurement based on the most advanced technologies available. The opportunity to evaluate the Portable People Meter shows Médiamétrie's willingness to anticipate media clients' needs, in terms of audience measurement, that will allow them to know the public's behavior."
Portable People Meter around the world
France joins a growing roster of countries around the world that currently use
or have agreed to evaluate the Arbitron PPM technology, including:
About the Portable People Meter
The Portable People Meter is a pager-sized audience measurement device that
is carried by consumers. It automatically detects inaudible codes that are embedded
in the audio portion of any broadcast programming by specially designed Arbitron
encoders. At the end of each day, the survey participants place the Portable
People Meters into base stations that recharge the devices and send the collected
codes for tabulation. The meters are equipped with a motion sensor that allows
the compliance of the PPM survey participants to be monitored every day—a quality
control feature unique to the Arbitron Portable People Meter in the realm of
media research.
About Médiamétrie
Médiamétrie is the French inter-professional company that measures audiences of both audio-visual and interactive mediums. Its aim is to ensure the highest quality audience and performance measurement for these mediums and meet the unique professional requirements of the media marketplace with a general consensus. Médiamétrie was created in 1985, and has developed its television, radio, cinema, Internet and new media activities in France and abroad. In 2002, Médiamétrie had revenue of 36.2 million Euros and 320 employees.
About Arbitron
Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) is an international media and marketing research firm
serving radio broadcasters, cable companies, advertisers, advertising agencies
and outdoor advertising companies in the United States, Mexico and Europe. Arbitron's
core businesses are measuring network and local market radio audiences across
the United States; surveying the retail, media and product patterns of local
market consumers; and providing application software used for analyzing media
audience and marketing information data. Arbitron Internet Broadcast Services
measures the audiences of audio and video content on the Internet, commonly
known as webcasts. The Company is developing the Portable People Meter, a new
technology for radio, television and cable ratings.
Arbitron's marketing and business units are supported by a world-renowned research
and technology organization located in Columbia, Maryland. Arbitron has approximately
825 full-time employees; its executive offices are located in New York City.
Through its Scarborough Research joint venture with SRDS, Inc., a subsidiary
of VNU, Inc., Arbitron also provides media and marketing research services to
the broadcast television, magazine, newspaper, outdoor and online industries.
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This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The statements regarding Arbitron in this document that are not historical in nature, particularly those that utilize terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "likely," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "believes" or "plans," or comparable terminology, are forward-looking statements based on current expectations about future events, which Arbitron has derived from information currently available to it. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause our results to be materially different from results implied in such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include whether we will be able to:
• renew contracts with large customers as they expire;
• successfully execute our business strategies, including timely implementation
of our Portable People Meter and our MeasureCast Ratings services, as well as
expansion of international operations;
• effectively manage the impact of further consolidation in the radio industry;
• keep up with rapidly changing technological needs of our customer base,
including creating new products and services that meet these needs; and
• successfully manage the impact on our business of any economic downturn
generally and in the advertising market in particular, and the impact on costs
of data collection due to privacy concerns.
Additional important factors known to Arbitron that could cause forward-looking
statements to turn out to be incorrect are identified and discussed from time
to time in Arbitron's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including
in particular the risk factors discussed under the caption "ITEM 1. BUSINESS
- Business Risks" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K.
