Arbitron/Nielsen PPM Joint Venture Delayed

Next month, stations and advertisers will begin to see regular audience estimates from Arbitron’s Portable People Meter in the trial markets. But a hoped-for joint venture with Nielsen Media Research is being put off.
Arbitron said it has made “significant progress” in the development of the PPM this year.
“We had anticipated that we could form the joint venture with Nielsen … by the middle of 2002,” said Marshall Snyder of Arbitron. “It’s clear that both our companies need additional time to consider whether to establish the proposed venture.” He now expects that decision to occur not before the fourth quarter.
Nielsen is providing financial support and survey expertise in the U.S. market trial. It has an option to join Arbitron in commercial deployment.
Arbitron released radio ratings to participating stations in May for the prior month. The industry will get a look at key results on June 17. Starting in July, Arbitron will begin releasing reports in an evaluation program to help the industry understand the differences between PPM numbers and the current Nielsen meter/diary estimates and Arbitron radio diary estimates.
The company took pains to state that the delayed decision would not affect its financial outlook for the year.