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Obama Urged to Join PPM Fight
In the US, a group of representatives of minority broadcasters have written to President Barack Obama asking him to intervene in the ongoing dispute over Arbitron's Portable People Meter (PPM), which they say they believe undercounts the audiences of minority radio stations.
 The letter has been penned by Hilary Shelton, Director of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People); David Honig, President of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council; and Hispanic Telecommunications and Technology Partnership Director Sylvia Aguilera.
Without the intervention of federal government, the independent voice of minority radio will be lost, the trio argue.
This is the latest protest regarding claims that PPM fails to provide a balanced count of minority listeners. Last month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) was asked to investigate the impact of the PPM by ten members of Congress. In May, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened an inquiry into the claims, while more recently, Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum filed a lawsuit against Arbitron.
In addition, earlier in the year, Arbitron settled with three attorneys general in New York, New Jersey and Maryland.
Dated 6 August, the letter states that Arbitron's ratings data has 'placed black and Latino-serving radio stations in the worst possible situation in their fight to weather the economic storm'. They add that efforts by Congress, the FCC and the Media Ratings Council have yet to cause Arbitron to 'deviate from its continued deployment of a radio ratings system that deeply undercounts and seriously misrepresents the listening habits of minority radio audiences'.
The three organizations urge Obama to address the situation and say that 'bad PPM data results in bad broadcasting decision, negatively impacts the public interest, undermines minority broadcasters, and works against our mutual goals to advance the supporting diversity in our nation's airwaves'.
Arbitron has so far commercialized the PPM service in 20 markets, but has not yet been accredited in many of its largest markets. At the beginning of last year, the MRC rejected accreditation of the service in Philadelphia and New York.
Web site: www.arbitron.com .
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