You probably think I’m making it up when I discuss the PPM uncovering the widespread fraud that was going on with paper diaries.
One of the callers to Tom Leykis said verbatim what I’ve asserted. He lives in Gary Indiana, which immediately gives you his demographics – the city is 85% black [David Letterman used to joke about how his family spent summer vacation in Gary before he stopped being a racist hoosier].
The caller indicated he had previously been an Arbitron listener back in the diary days (finding black male listeners who will keep a diary is a major challenge). This time, he was sent the PPM device which listens to what it hears. He said he wasn’t going to wear the device – people might think he was a drug dealer – so he deicded to sit the PPM device in front of speakers and let it listen to radio for 16 hours a day. (By the way, telling the radio station that you’re an Arbitron participant is highly forbidden in their rules – otherwise people would “shop” their listening to try to get free stuff.
What he didn’t know was the PPM has a motion detector. If you haven’t moved the device within a few minutes, they know you set the device down and it stops registering. Arbitron then called him up after a few days to annoy him and tell him he had to actually wear the device – he couldn’t just “vote” for his favorite radio station by having it sit in front of a radio. He told them F* this S**t and sent the PPM device back to them.
There goes another 2% market share for Al Sharpton
If it were not for the stinkin’ rules we could all be happier. BTW, how much does Arbitron pay? I could have sold that guy a really neat device that is rigged to continuously move. Nothing hi-tech since it’s just a rocking chair.
I could sell you my old turntable so you could give it a spin. It is so old that it doesn’t even have a USB port- RCA cables only….. who today knows what an RCA is? 😉
I have a box full of RCA cables, but where can I get vinyl records of newer music?
wow!
[flutter]
Need any RCA cables?
Nidster, eBay/Craig’s list those cables. You won’t get rich from it, but you might rescue us from global warming by keeping them out of a landfill, and reducing factory air pollution in China. 😉
Iron Butterfly 😉
I got your back, Nidster:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/10/arts/music/vinyl-records-are-making-a-comeback.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
I just can’t remember what I did with my bottle of record cleaner.
Neato!
others have suggeested attaching it to a dog’s collar might work. I suspect the motion detector is only the first line of defense.
Arbitron is in a tricky position – they want to make the numbers look big, but they exist because advertisers don’t trust radio to produce honest numbers – so there is a certification process from the RAB (Radio Advertisers’s Bureau) to force some accountability – however, the government is involved as well. When accurate PPM numbers started showing that audiences for “black radio” and Spanish language radio were virtually nothing, the government put pressure on Arbitron to revise the way they find and retain guys like the one from Gary. It doesn’t surprise me that he has been an arbitron panel member more than once. One of their metrics is what percentage of people quit each month – with the PPM, it’s easier to just have them as permanent members, rather than doing resampling constantly. If you find a black man who has a phone and actually listens to radio, he’s a very valuable commodity.
‘Leykis’ LOL idiot
Radio Corporation of America. We didn’t have a RCA TV, we had a Zenith, when I was growing up.
Parrott