It’s a good day for the Portable People Meter.
The Media Rating Council has accredited Arbitron’s PPM for use in 11 more markets.
Previously, only three — Houston, Minneapolis and Riverside-San Bernardino — had MRC accreditation for PPM.
The 11 additional markets are Atlanta; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Kansas City; Milwaukee-Racine, Wis.; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Portland, Ore.; Salt Lake City-Ogden-Provo, Utah; St. Louis and Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Fla.
Yet 34 PPM markets remain without MRC accreditation based on the findings of the 2010 MRC audits.
The Media Rating Council is composed of various media companies, advertisers, agencies and trade associations. Its exists to ensure that media measurement services are valid, reliable and effective. Services that want accreditation must meet certain rules like disclosing their methodological approach to their customers and submitting to MRC audits to authenticate procedures.
The 34 remaining PPM markets — along with the 14 accredited ones — will be audited again in 2011. Arbitron submits each of the 48 PPM markets to annual audits.
Arbitron EVP Service Innovation and Chief Research Officer Gregg Lindner said the company’s initiatives developed with MRC, such as in-person recruitment and more cell phone-only sampling, have improved the PPM sample quality.
The MRC also accredited Arbitron’s PPM Analysis Tool, a software application that provides audience analysis reports including rankers, trend reports and audience composition reports.
