"New Way of Counting Radio Listeners May Cut Ad Income"

The New York Times published an article titled, "New Way of Counting Radio Listeners May Cut Ad Income." The piece was written by Brian Stelter. The article explained how Arbitron, which is a new method of tracking radio listeners, showed a big decline in ratings among station especially those appealing to black and Hispanics demographics. Previously Arbitron used paper diaries from sample listeners to set advertising prices. Now Arbitron has switched to more accurate way to track radio listeners by using computer technology. Arbitron now uses a pocket sized devise that is able to detect radio frequencies so that they can log what station a listener is actually tuned into.
The article continues on to state the damage that this new method is having on more ethnically friendly stations. For example, WPAT (93.1), a Spanish speaking adult contemporary station in New York, was rated number seven in Arbitron’s summer ratings but with the new equipment the station’s ratings fell to number nineteen. The station manager on WPAT, Frank Flores, was quoted saying, “No format changes were made. This is the same music, the same on-air personalities, and yet we’ve seen sever shirts in reported listening.” With such a drop in ratings comes a huge drop in the station’s support and ability to see ads as well. The paper wrote, "If those stations are hit with 30 or 40 percent loss of revenue it would be difficult to remain in operation." Another station that was hit hard in the ratings was WBLS. WBLS (107.5) is an urban adult contemporary station that was previously rated the number one station in its listening area. When the new Arbitron method of measuring listenership was used, the station had dropped form number one to number twelve.
While I see how such a dramatic drop in a stations listenership can have a significant effect on a station, I feel that Arbitron's new method is a more accurate one. I feel that those stations that are upset at the new method are just really upset at true numbers. I believe that it makes more sense that stations that target minorities have fewer listeners. A station that is targeting the majority is able to draw from a much larger listener base. That is why it is very rare to see a Christian radio station on the charts for high listenership. Not many people follow Christian music, which makes the number of people that a Christian radio broadcast station has to even draw from very small. And that does not even subtract Christians that listen to the different genres of music. The article later states that Arbitron is having an independent board review the new system soon. I am looking forward to seeing the results of Arbitron’s accuracy.