When the Summer 2009 Arbitron ratings come out on Monday, they may paint a different picture of Pittsburgh's radio listening habits.

This will be the first Pittsburgh radio ratings book using data collected by Arbitron's Portable People Meter, a new electronic measurement system. The PPM is a device, similar to a pager or cell phone, that is worn by survey respondents. It replaces the written diary, where respondents would record what stations they listened to and when.

The PPM responds to inaudible embedded codes in a station's broadcast signals. The person wearing the meter and hearing the station will be automatically tallied among the station's total listeners.

Arbitron says the new system promises more accuracy and stability because it measures precise listening times and exposure to a station, rather than relying on a person's memory in filling out a diary.

The impact of gaining or losing listeners goes straight to a station's bottom line. Ratings drive how advertising is purchased and determines a station's ad rates.

"It's a very significant change in how radio operates in this market," says KDKA program director Marshall Adams.

Arbitron introduced the PPM in 2007 and has been gradually deploying it in individual U.S. radio markets. The July through September 2009 survey period is the first one for Pittsburgh.

There are many differences in the new system. Diary listeners took part in the survey for one week. PPM survey respondents can wear the devices for up to two years, with the average time being nine months. New panelists are cycled in on a regular basis.

Ratings are now totaled monthly instead of quarterly. And the surveys include young listeners between the ages of 6 and 11. Before, they reflected a total audience of listeners 12 years and older.

While the sample sizes are smaller than they were in the diary surveys, monitoring listeners over a longer term yields a more accurate picture of their habits, says Jessica Benbow, Arbitron corporate communications manager.

The sample target for the Pittsburgh panel is 1,088 people.

PPM has been the subject of much controversy in some markets since its introduction. It has been widely criticized by minority broadcasters -- and has drawn the attention of the FCC and attorneys general in several states -- for under-representing minority listeners. Critics charge that it has failed to hit its own minimum sample sizes for measuring African-American and Hispanic audiences in several top markets with high percentages of minority listeners.

In response to the complaints, Arbitron has announced that it would increase its overall sample size by 10 percent by the middle of 2011.

"It's a work in progress," says radio industry observer Tom Taylor, news editor of the broadcasting trade journal Radio-Info. "The main complaints are sample size that some radio groups feel is inadequate, and more controversially, that the system disadvantages African-Americans and Hispanics.

"It's clear that some companies have made format decisions with an eye to the coming of PPM, with rock, oldies and other formats often being the beneficiary [and] not ethnic formats," Taylor says.

The under-counting of minority listeners prompted many to speculate that the arrival of PPM here was one factor in the demise of urban contemporary WAMO-FM and classic R&B WAMO-AM. Sheridan Broadcasting sold those stations in May.

"In other markets, the trend was that straight-ahead urbans like WAMO were getting hit the hardest," says former WAMO program director Ron Atkins.

"They're trying to make it into a racial ethnic issue because those stations that play to those ethnic audiences are the ones that have been hit the worst. I don't think it's really that," Atkins says. "PPM has disadvantages from its basic methodology. [There are] not enough panels out there to get a good read with the ethnic audiences. There weren't enough respondents out there on the young-ended stations. The urban stations are mostly a younger audience.

"Stations like WAMO that have been in the market for a number of years benefit more from the [diary] recall system simply because their brand has been so strong for so many years."

But diaries had disadvantages, too. That system was also criticized for under-counting some audiences, such as young male listeners, who often didn't bother to keep up the diary entries.

How PPM will shape the ratings here remains to be seen. The change hasn't affected KDKA's ratings much. Adams said he was struck by the consistency between diary and PPM ratings numbers so far. He believes PPM is giving the station a much quicker feel for what draws listeners. When KDKA reported about the recent LA Fitness shootings and a Ben Roethlisberger news conference, the station was able to see spikes in listenership.

Programmers "have a lot more information to pull from," says Arbitron's Benbow. "Now you have the ability to look minute by minute. People using these data to program can go back and see what worked and didn't work and can make adjustments."

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