Profile: Arbitron Inc (ARB.N)

ARB.N on New York Stock Exchange

46.01USD
1 Aug 2013
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Arbitron Inc. (Arbitron), incorporated on October 25, 2000, is a media and marketing information services firm primarily serving radio, advertisers, advertising agencies, cables and broadcast television, retailers, out-of-home media, online media, mobile media, telecommunications providers, and print media. The Company's main service is estimating the size and composition of radio audiences in local markets and of audiences to network radio programming and commercials in the United States. The Company also provides services, such as qualitative information about consumers, including their lifestyles, shopping patterns, and use of media, and software to access and analyze media audience and marketing information data.

The Company refers to its local and network radio audience ratings services, collectively, as its syndicated radio ratings services. The Company provides its syndicated radio ratings services in local markets in the United States to radio broadcasters, advertising agencies, and advertisers. The Company offers services estimating the size and demographic composition of audiences of media other than radio, such as mobile media and television viewed out-of-home. The Company refers these services, collectively, as its other media services. The Company also offers services estimating the media consumption and behavior of audiences to content distributed on multiple platforms. The Company refers to these services, as its cross platform services.

The Company provides qualitative information about consumers, including their lifestyles, shopping patterns, and use of media in local markets and across the United States. The Company provides software applications allowing its customers to access its databases of media and marketing information. The Company has developed its electronic Arbitron Portable People Meter (PPM) technology, which the Company deploys across its customer offerings and have licensed to other media information services companies to use in their media audience ratings services in countries outside of the United States.

Syndicated Radio Ratings Services

In the Company's PPM service, the Company gathers data regarding panelists' exposure to encoded audio material using its PPM devices. The Company recruits a panel of households to participate in the service (all persons aged six and older in the household) from a random probability sample of persons living in the PPM Markets. The Company asks the household members to participate in the panel for a period of up to two years, carrying its devices throughout their day. Panelists earn points based on their compliance with the task of carrying the device. The PPM system collects the codes and adds a date/time stamp and indication of whether the listener was at home or out-of-home to each listening occasion and the information is transmitted to the Company for processing, tabulation, and analysis in producing the Company's audience estimates. The Company issues a ratings report in each measured market for 13 four-week ratings periods per year. The Company also issues interim weekly reports to station subscribers for programming information. Users access the Company's ratings estimates through an Internet-based software system, which the Company provides.

The Company has entered into arrangements with media information services companies pursuant to which those companies use its PPM technology in their audience ratings services in specific countries outside of the United States. The Company has arrangements with Kantar Media, which is owned by WPP Group plc, a global communications services group, and BBM Canada. The Company sells PPM hardware and equipment to the Company for uses in its media measurement services and collect a royalty once the service is deemed commercial. The Company's PPM technology is being used for media ratings in nine countries in addition to the United States, which include Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Kazakhstan, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, and United Kingdom. Six of the countries, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Iceland, Kazakhstan, and Norway, use PPM technology for measuring both television and radio.

The Company uses listener diaries to gather radio listening data from a random probability sample group of persons aged 12 and over in households in the 227 United States local markets, and the Company contacts them by telephone and /or mails to solicit their agreement to participate in the survey. When participants in the Company's Diary survey agree to take part in a survey, the Company mails them a small, pocket-sized diary and asks them to record their listening in the diary over the course of a seven-day period. The Company asks diarykeepers to report in their diary the station(s) to which they listened, when they listened and where they listened, such as home, car, work, or other place. During the year ended December 31, 2012, the Company received and processed more than 700,000 diaries to produce its audience listening estimates.

The Company's RADAR service provides an estimate of national radio audiences and the audience size of network radio programs and commercials. The Company provides the audience estimates for a range of demographics and dayparts for total radio listening and for more than 49 separate radio networks. The Company provides network audience estimates by merging the radio listening of selected survey respondents and panelists with the reported times, which network programs and commercials is aired on each affiliated station. The Company delivers the RADAR estimates through its RADAR Software Suite desktop software application, which includes a range of tools for analysis of network audiences.

Other Media Services

The Company's Arbitron Mobile Oy has developed a mobile software meter compatible with mobile devices offered by manufacturers, mobile device operating systems, and wireless service provider protocols. The Arbitron Mobile software meter can measure consumers' mobile experience, online and offline, and includes the ability to measure the incidence and duration of software application usage. Arbitron Mobile's potential customer base includes media measurement companies, wireless service providers; Internet service providers; software service providers; wireless device manufacturers; media content owners; and advertising agencies and advertisers. As with the Company's other research services, the Company recruits panels of consumers who agree to download the software meter onto their mobile devices. The Company uses its PPM technology to measure panelists' exposure to television outside of their home, including in restaurants, bars, hotels, airports, and the workplace. The Company's cross platform deploys the Company's PPM technology for application to other types of media and/or content distributed across multiple platforms.

Local Market Qualitative Consumer Information Services

In the Company's radio ratings service, the Company provides quantitative data, such as how many people are listening. The Company also provides qualitative data, such as consumer and media usage information to radio stations, cable companies, television stations, out-of-home media, magazine and newspaper publishers, advertising agencies and advertisers. The qualitative data on listeners, viewers and readers provide socioeconomic information and information on what survey participants buy, where they shop and what forms of media they use. The Company provides these measures of consumer demographics, retail behavior, and media usage in local markets throughout the United States.

The Company provides qualitative services to customer's specific market size and marketing requirements, such as the Scarborough reports, the RetailDirect Service, the Qualitative Diary Service/LocalMotion Service, and Non-Syndicated Research Services. The Company also provides training and support services, which help its customers understand and use the local market consumer information the Company provides. Scarborough service is provided through a joint venture between Arbitron and a subsidiary of Nielsen and is governed by a partnership agreement. The Scarborough Report provides detailed information about media usage, retail and shopping habits, demographics and lifestyles in 77 United States local markets, based on a sample of consumers in the relevant markets.

The Company is the exclusive marketer of the Scarborough Report to radio broadcasters, cable companies, out-of-home media, and advertisers, and advertising agencies. Scarborough Research markets the Scarborough Report to newspapers, sports marketers and online service providers. The Company's RetailDirect service is a locally oriented purchase data and media usage research service provided in 17 United States local markets. This service, which utilizes diaries and telephone surveys, provides a profile of the audience in terms of local media, retail and consumer preferences. Retail categories include automotive, audio-video, furniture and appliances, soft drinks and beer, fast food, department stores, grocery stores, banks and hospitals. Media usage categories include local radio, broadcast television, cable networks, out-of-home media, newspapers, yellow pages and advertising circulars.

The Company's Qualitative Diary Service collects consumer and media usage information from Arbitron radio diarykeepers in 151 smaller United States local markets. The Company collects consumer behavior information for local markets retail categories, such as automotive sales, grocery, fast food, furniture and bedding stores, beer, soft drinks and banking. The Qualitative Diary Service also collects information about other media, such as television news viewership, cable television viewership, out-of-home media exposure and newspaper readership. This qualitative service provided for cable television companies is known as LocalMotion. The Company's non-syndicated or custom research services serve companies seeking to demonstrate the value of their advertising propositions. Through the Company's non-syndicated research services, the Company is also exploring additional applications of PPM data, including nonratings programming and marketing. The Company is also exploring providing services for companies that sell advertising on in-store (retail) media and sports arenas.

Data and Software Services

The Company provides its audience estimates in a range of different reports the Company publishes and licenses to its customers. The cornerstone of the Company's radio audience ratings services is the Radio Market Report, which is available in all local markets, for which the Company provides radio ratings. Each Radio Market Report contains estimates to help radio stations, advertising agencies and advertisers understand who is listening to the radio, which stations they are listening to, and where and when they are listening.

The Company licenses software applications, which provide its customers access to the audience estimates in its databases. These applications include Maximi$er, TAPSCANTM and PD Advantage, which are services for radio stations, and Media Professional and SmartPlus, which are services for advertising agencies and advertisers. The PPM Analysis Tool is used by both radio stations and advertising agencies. The Maximi$er service includes a Windows-based application to access a market's Arbitron radio Diary database on a client's personal computer. Radio stations use the Maximi$er service to produce information about their stations and programming.

The TAPSCAN software is a advertising industry's radio analysis applications. The software uses respondent-level data, and it includes cost-efficiency analyses, hour-by-hour estimates and trending, and automatic scheduling and goal tracking. In addition to local Arbitron Radio Report ratings estimates, the TAPSCAN Web service also allows radio stations, advertisers and advertising agencies to access the Company's National Regional Database to analyze ratings information for customer-defined groupings of stations across multiple markets and custom groupings of counties. The TAPSCAN Web and TAPSCAN Sales Management applications combine a customer relationship management system with scheduling and research applications. In addition, TAPSCAN Web supports traffic system integration through XML exports following Proposal XML standard, as well as electronic exchange with Marketron's traffic system. Another TAPSCAN service, QUALITAP, is also made available to television and cable outlets in the United States under a licensing arrangement with Marketron International, Inc.

The PPM Analysis Tool enables subscribers of PPM respondent level data to analyze PPM data. The Company's PD Advantage service offers radio station program directors in Diary markets the ability to create a range of reports, which help analyze the market, the audience, and their competition. PDA Web is a comparable service for radio program directors in PPM Markets. The Company's SmartPlus and Media Professional services provide media buying software systems to local and regional advertising agencies for broadcast and print media. The Media Professional and SmartPlus services are designed to help advertising agencies and advertisers plan and buy radio advertising time. These services integrate radio planning and buying into one research and media-buying tool. In addition to the licensing above, the Company offers third-party software providers and customers licenses to uses software.

The Company competes with Civolution, GfK AG, Ipsos SA, Nielsen, Anite plc, Ascom, CarrierIQ, Inc., comScore, Inc., Experian Simmons, Lumi Mobile, M:Metrics, Inc, Mediametrie, Nokia Siemens Networks, Spirent Communications, Edison Research, Marketron Inc., STRATA Marketing Inc., Donovan Data Systems, Interactive Media Systems, Telmar Information Services Corp., International Demographics, Inc., Experian Marketing Solutions, Triton Media Group (Ando Media) comScore, Inc., Google, Omniture, Quantcast, Kantar Media, Rentrak Corporation, TiVo and TRA Global, Inc.

Company Address

Arbitron Inc

9705 Patuxent Woods Drive
COLUMBIA   MD   21046
P: +1410.3128000
F: +1302.6555049

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