Spanish Broadcasters Not Happy About Language Preference Weighting

Spanish-language radio broadcasters are criticizing Arbitron’s decision to use language preference weighting to tabulate local radio listening. In a joint statement, Hispanic Broadcasting Corp., Spanish Broadcasting Systems, Entravision Communications Corp. and Radio Unica Communications Corp. said that while they have long demanded that Arbitron commit to language preference weighting to ensure an accurate accounting of Spanish-language radio listeners, they claim Arbitron’s new position means nothing if the audience measuring service is not ready to remedy the problem.
“We believe Arbitron’s survey methodology is defective,” said Bill Tanner, EVP Programming for Spanish Broadcasting System. “And much the same way as other industries are forced to recall defective products, Arbitron should recall its current methodology or immediately move to correct it.”
As important as is correcting Arbitron’s methodology, the Spanish-language radio broadcasters say Arbitron’s sample sizes also must be expanded in order to have sufficient responses on which to weight by language.