committee will come to order good morning today the committee will examine the use of albatross portable people meter a device that arbitron claims is revolutionising ready audience ratings but which instead may be a lemonade ing diversity in ready zero broadcast sting the last thirty years have been a great american entrepreneur story for minority owned readier stations are minority ready o listeners where once there were few or no minority radio stations in most cities now there are multiple stations competing in all major metropolitan areas the existence of this hard won legacy is now threatened controversial use of p p m is driving away advertisers minority radio has been hit by perfect storm the economic downturn and p p m mostly they have probably never even is using the p p m to replace the paper diaries that have been used for decades to find out which listens to which station who listens to which station in two thousand and six arbitron introduced a p p m and expanded the use of its p p m across the country and thirty one additional markets which has resulted in crippling minority owned or targeted ready or stations these ratings have had a devastating effect on the radio industry advertising profit and programming choices are all shifting away from the minority community i have no quarrel with a rating system that is accurate but there is regulatory body where the council fires a measurement service consistently provides fair i quit and unbiased data it awards accreditations where this is not the case it denies accreditation thirty one of the thirty three p p m market in addition the attorney general in new york and new jersey maryland and florida have all taken actions against albatross alleging flaws in p p m as a methodology that have resulted in the undercounting a minority listeners precipitous drops in ratings and loss of advertising revenue yet arbitron has not changed and insists on commercialization before it receives proper accreditations some people may ask how a problem like this could even exist in this day and age well as a famous expression goes when the cat's  away the mice will play and this case the cat hasn't been seen in years for many years our government has taken a hands off approach to oversight or regulation over it and arbitron is free to ignore m r c the so called industry regulated because m r c is a purely voluntary organization with a voluntary code of conduct and voluntary good behavior on the part of a monopolistic company this is not the first time congress has considered this question back in the one nine hundred sixty s the house and to state and foreign commerce committee considered regulate and ready to go and television audience rating companies back then congress opted to let the energy regulate itself based on assurance that it would be done in a rational way in fact the industry created m r c to carry out that that self regulation apparently this self regulatory system more or less worked for a number of years now i'm not sure perhaps we need to take another look at that of these questions additionally we will hear from other members of the radio industry who have been directly affected by the p p m i look forward to hearing their testimony and discussing potential solutions to this problem just time i would like to yield time to the ranking member of the committee gentleman from california congressman down i say thank you mr chairman and as this committee is well aware as a result of our oversight of the census we expect and will get a more accurate count data that is more reliable new technology for the senses was at the core of artists of our hearings and our recognition that the new technology was not ready for primetime today's hearing similarly is on whether the accuracy the total accuracy of p p m is in fact to be acknowledge or if in fact more work is to be done it seems clear that the prior to the introduction of p p m radio rating measurements were measurement was stuck in the words of one columnist in the stone age with the use of weekly handwritten paper diaries the issues the issues related to the use these diaries and their simple easy to grasp terms was questionable attempting to restructure that system if you will to make a frank franklin day planner of of diaries had been tried many times but ultimately it was only as good as a reporting person and often questions about brand loyalty  being more important when somebody was recapturing what they had done over a week rather than the count of how many minutes they spent on a specific station notwithstanding that being one of the two members or  district including one of the two locations in which we have been approved riverside calif california i'm acutely aware that we want to not only get it right but we want to recognize the real value in the media market of the listeners i'm pleased today to see both the president c e o of the rating agency and our witness alfred legan's chief executive officer and president of radio one a person who in fact has found it to be a useful tool to chairman i'm not going to go through my entire opening statement on the record and we just close without objection and just close saying that although today the numbers are what we're talking about from my own background purchasing advertising i can tell you that the black entertainment television when i was advertising on cable outperformed in the actual benefit to our company its rating and was one of the most cost effective places to advertise my brand knowing this i recognize that even with a rating it doesn't state what the value is to the advertiser so i might in closing mr chairman it is clear that we have to both look at accurate numbers and over time the rating agencies must i repeat must modernize to look at intensity of the listener intensity of the watcher in the case of television and weight that today there is no such thing as a system that properly understands that you may have less or more listeners they may listen for less or more time but they may be much more loyal to the brands that are advertised on those stations that technology does not exist we will not hear as far as i know about it today but mr chairman i appreciate that you are up a matter that has been for too long not here heard in the energy and commerce committee or in this committee or even next door in judiciary committee and i commend you on holding this hearing and yield back the balance of my time thanks very much appreciate your testimony and also your kind words we will now move to ou first panel and it consists of a long standing policy that we swear in all of our witnesses so if you would stand and raise your right hand served as president and c e o at a number of technology companies including i think it's performance technology and of course he's also cboe and predictive network and of course he focused on business and product development misguides in ski also held management positions at lucent and of course under the administration of george h bush guys in ski served as a secretary of trade development department of organization which was created at the request of congress forty four years ago to ensure high ethical and operational standards for rating companies mr ivy's background includes twenty five years of experience in media research oversees research for all media divisions ms sharon is considered an expert in the field of audience measurement and is a renowned for her research on sampling methodology prior to grande was a senior vice president marketing development at nielsen media research younger twenty seven years at nielsen she developed new systems of data collection she also was the princip developer of nielsen hispanic service which she managed for ten years welcome was david honing is the co founder and current president and executive director of the minority media and council he also serves as general counsel to the broadband opportunity coalition the m t c represent over seventy minority civil rights and religious national organizations and elected press for seedings before is on green and then just before a minute for you or are you and it turns to yellow and then a minute later it turns to read and good morning mr chairman ranking member and members of the committee i am michael scar's ascii chief executive officer of arbitron on behalf of arbitron one thousand three hundred who work in twenty seven states i'm proud to appear before this committee today for more than six years arbitron has been dedicated to advancing the interests of the radio industry we provide the quality data that allows radio broadcasters to make programming decisions and advertisers to make their media buying decisions today's hearing is focused on arbitrage portable people meter or p p m and its impact on minority radio stations we share the concern regarding the health of this important voice of broadcasting community we are however confident that p p m is not the cause of the challenges faced by minority broadcasters it is encouraging to note that urban adult contemporary is the most listened to format in the top sixteen p p m markets this was reported just two days ago by an important trade publication inside radio we believe that the inside radio report is another strong indication that p p m continues to reflect reliably the listenership of all formats including urban and hispanic arbitron has work to implement the p p m service responsibly and fairly and we have always been sensitive and responsive to customer concerns raised about p p m arbitron launched its innovative rating service to help support the entire radio industry's objective to have relevant reliable data that enables it to compete against television internet and other media for advertising revenue while p p m represents a significant advance it cannot do everything it cannot solve the severe economic challenges that the radio industry has confronted for the last two years we have all felt the impact of a recession that has caused a drastic and in some cases devastating decline in radio advertising with resulting significant declines in radio revenue further p p m cannot address the high debt burdens faced by many radio broadcasters including my already broadcasters are radio broadcast customers asked arbitron to develop an electronic measurement service that helps them showcase the value of radio our advertising agency customers asked us to provide them with a service that more accurately reflects exposure to radio we responded the development of p p m as a reflection of our commitment to improving radio arbitron spent more than one hundred million dollars over ten years developing the solution we incorporated input from industry players and the technology has been thoroughly tested over time the p p m technology and methodology are solid p p m was honored by time magazine as one of the best inventions of two thousand and seven p p m methodology was built on the m r c accredited diary methodology and produces valid and reliable audience estimates in fact p p m has been the audience measurement tool of choice for several years in a number of european countries as well as canada and singapore overall we have received a great deal of positive customer feedback about p p s broadcasters are telling arbitron that p p m provides reliable timely and granular data providing our broadcast customers a more timely p data has helped guide ms mid course corrections and programming adjustments to advance their business for example california radio station k j l h owned by stevie wonder at the steve harvey show on aug tenth two thousand nine current p p m data shows a k j l h between september and october two thousand and nine experience a sixty percent increase in morning drive share for persons eighteen to thirty four when i joined arbitron in january of this year i made it my priority to visit customers personally i learned from customers that there are powerful interests trucked of ideas about how we can improve our p p m service in fact listening to our customers has helped us craft our continuous improvement program as we strive to improve our p p m service and make it a valuable asset for the industry every technology requires improvements and we believe we have been both proactive and responsive to making improvements this year we ha expanded cell phone only sampling to a national average of fifteen percent and we expect to increase to twenty percent by year end two thousand and ten we've instituted country of origin reporting we've expanded extensive training in person coaching and enhanced incentives to encourage greater survey participation additionally we are working with our customers and other industry leaders to develop an engagement index as invasion the engagement index would be a metric that complements existing data and reflects an audience involvement and loyalty to a particular station this cooperative work to help all broadcasters advertising agencies and advertisers have a balanced impact on radio ad planning and buying we have been working tirelessly with members of the minority broadcasting community and we believe that with your leadership and a continued dialogue we can make progress towards a common ground mr chairman arbitron welcomes the opportunity to work with you and members of the committee to address the challenges of the minority radio broadcasters i look forward to your questions thank you very much thank you very much mr ivey sure  eisen members of the committee my name is george i v and for the last ten years i've served as executive director and c e o of the media rating council i would like to thank chairman towns ranking member ice and the committee for the opportunity to testify this morning on arbitron portable people meter rating service before joining the m r c i worked with young as a lead partner on all m r c audit including my ten years as executive director i i have over twenty five years experience in auditing rating service methodologies and i've presided over and conducted many hundreds of these audit forty five years ago congress addressed the same issue this committee faces today namely the accuracy and reliability of audience research at that time after extensive testimony and careful consideration congress reached three basic conclusion first there was a need for professional independent review of audience rating services second that industry self regulation rather than the hand of direct government regulation was the best means of assuring quality and accuracy of audience rating data and third through federal laws regulating any competitive conduct and deceptive practices the federal government retained the means to deal with serious computer consumer impacting abuses the m r c ultimately emerge based on the suggestions received during these congressional deliberations just as congress invision are only business is to review in a credit audience rating services through rigorous independent and objective audit one of the hallmarks of our auditing procedures is that participating research organizations must be totally transparent driving our confidentiality requirements which were originally full to the c p a firm as described in my written testimony the m r c has adopted stringent safeguards to assure that accreditation decisions are based only on the merits we appreciate the committee's interest in the merits of the p p m services and of particular importance concerned that p p m services may fail to accurately represent listening preferences of minority audiences through cooperation with the committee subpoena we have made audit and our related correspondence of vailable for your review we hope our diligence expertise and due process is apparent from the documentation measurement accuracy second how this technology is being implemented by arbitron in the markets of interest let me quickly address the first issue there is little doubt and in fact there exists a broad in consensus that electronic measurements such as arbitron p p m technology can represent an improvement over existing non electronic audience measurement when implemented diligently in the second area the implementation details the m r c ongoing concerns perhaps most important in our opinion arbitron has failed to demonstrate that the p p m services can attain performance metrics among mostly younger panelists across most markets on a sustained basis and the company continues to introduce numerous new p p m markets without having solved this issue we have ongoing concerns and dialogue surrounding several measurement despite efforts to improve and extensive cooperation from arbitron with these issues remain a concern today attached to our written testimony reference attachment is a series of performance indicator charts that illustrated decline in tabulation rates among young adult panelists during the period from january two thousand  september two thousand and nine this was committed considered by our committee in the last audit review meeting of the services in almost all cases young adult african american panelists show even worse performance than the general charts indicate these charts also show response rates referred to as the market some of which are considered low by the committee arbitron is in the process of adding significant staff and implementing other improvements intended to stem the tabulation decline in attachment of our written testimony you can see the results of that for a short period in october arbitron has been participating in the accreditation process fully however the fact remains that arbitron are in process for the improvements required by the m r have been ongoing post commercialization for over twenty unaccredited markets we have several recommendations on record with arbitron to address these matters in closing the strive for decades to be faithful to the mission congress suggested for us we hope the committee agrees that arbitron should remain committed to the process maintain focus on the audit and methodological issues we raise and ultimately thank you chairman towns ranking member and members of the committee my name is carol shag brown and i'm executive vice president of corporate research at univision communications which owns and operates sixty eight local spanish language radio listeners i appreciate the opportunity today i worked in the media ratings industry for over thirty years thank you i am here today because i'm concerned that the radio rating system is facing a crisis that threatens to undermine the goal of the diverse radio marketplace in two thousand and seven arbitron began rolling out a current p p m system and methodology from the outset arbitron promoted the p p m system as a technological advance from the older paper diary system a twenty first century ratings technology while the p p m technology may be twenty century the underlying research methodology is the power in which the system is based is still very much stuck in the twentieth century are badly flawed and are creating havoc in the radio marketplace from the outset the data provided under the p p m evidence to radek rating swings for which there is no plausible explanation other than the quality and reliability of the sample for example univision over thirty markets nationwide its admitted the system to the media ratings council for accreditation today the m r c the independent industry body established by congress to overachieve media rating services has failed to credit the p p m in all but two markets the emirates decision to withhold accreditation is not arbitrary well m or leadings are confidential the p p m system was have been well documented in public sources and can be assumed to factor heavily in the m r c accreditation decisions birth arbitron recruits from the wrong sample frame trans primary sample frame includes only households with landline telephone numbers households with no telephones and cell phone only households are excluded from the main stamp of frame minorities are present in these excluded categories as at a much higher rate than other groups second arbitron include cell phone only whole household via a separate sample with very low response rates that is controlled to contribute ten to fifteen percent of the households in each market but cellphone only households are disproportionately young and minority twenty five percent of hispanics live in cellphone only households as do twenty one point four percent of african american and forty one point five percent of those aged twenty five to twenty nine and of course the number of cellphone only households continues to grow month after month third african american and hispanic listeners are under represented in the sample panels arbitron has proved unable to meet its own internal metrics for minority participation and its sample panels even when there are enough they are not representative forth arbitron panels are too small for example in atlanta each african american panelist is assumed to represent ten thousand others this p p m panelists do not receive the training earth support they need to use a devices properly every single one of these issues is entirely fixable all that is required for arbitron is for arbitron to apply the same commitment that it has shown to the using twenty first century ratings technology to implement twenty first century research methodology that means recognizing that in the twenty first century wireless america an address they sample is preferable to a landline based spam paul it means recognizing that in twenty first century diverse america in person recruiting a bigger more representative sample robust participant training are not a luxury they are a necessity for creating the kind of twenty first century methodology is entirely possible we know these things are possible because arbitron has already done them in houston in houston arbitron made the needed investment in address they sample frame and in person recruitment and as a result the p p m system was given m r c accreditation what's good enough for houston should be good enough for the rest of america arbitron most reaffirm its genuine commitment to the m or c process not simply going through the motions of the audit arbitron should agree that it will not make new rating systems current to be in markets until the m r c has a created a credit that meanwhile arbitron should agree to maintain the previous diary based system in parallel to the new electronic system until c provides accreditations maintaining the diary system service is the only alternative that allows buyers and sellers to have usable measurements during the time it takes arbitron to address the flaws in the p service these changes must be made in haste every day that passes the ability of minority broadcasters to continue meeting the needs of our communities is threatened the time for action is now mr chairman i appreciate the opportunity to share these with you today and i would be pleased to answer any questions you or members of the committee may have thank you very much for your testimony  chairman towns ranking member ice and members of the committee my name is david hoenig i am the president and executive director of the minority media and telecommunications council m m t c m m t c is a member of the coalition which consists of the spanish radio association univision communications inc spanish broadcasting system on your vision communications corp the national association of black on broadcasters broadcast holdings border media partners the association of hispanic advertising agencies los angeles and force and i appreciate this opportunity to address the committee as it considers the effect of arb diversity in radio broadcasting the supreme court has noted that it is long been a basic tenet of national communications policy that the widest dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public diversity means acknowledging understanding accepting valuing and celebrating differences among people with respect age class ethnicity gender and race true diversity in broadcast ownership will result in more diverse speech more choices for listeners and more owners who are responsive to their local communities and serve the public interest adequate representation of minority viewpoints and programming serves not only the needs and interests of the minority community but also enriches and educates the non minority audience it enhances the diversified programming which is a key objective of the communications act and the first amendment for example two studies have clearly demonstrated that minority oriented media produce a positive and measurable impact on the communities they serve a two thousand and five study found that black targeted newspapers and radio stations function as mobilizing channels for political participation among black voters controlling for the size of the black population in the market the availability of black targeted media had an elevating effect on black voter participation in the two thousand and six study determine that voter turnout among hispanic voters was by the ten percentage points higher in areas with spanish language local news than areas without that service the communication services to diverse audiences benefit our democracy as a whole in our continuing quest for opportunity and equality the u s court of appeals for the d c circuit is recognized that public policy places primary reliance with respected of versification of content on media ownership which has historically proven to be sticked to significantly influential the read with respect editorial comment and the presentation of the news this is proving to be true in recent months as minority on and says has been have been undercounted by the p p m rating services all commercial broadcasters depend on advertising for their livelihood and audience ratings are the sole method of determining the size of audiences that are available to listen to radio advertising messages in the top fifty markets arbitron is the monopoly provider radio audience measurement services when minority audiences are undercounted advertising dollars shrink or disappear altogether for those minority targeted stations the simplest solution for a standard profit driven broadcaster would be to switch to a mainstream cookie cutter format to program for the ratings it has been the minority owned broadcasters who have valiantly held to the task of serving the local media minority communities with targeted formats but true dedication alone will not pay the electric bill and make payroll without sure and quick relief even the minority owned stations will struggle to survive and every time any one of these extraordinary radio voices fails the fabric of our society becomes a bit more tattered the obvious solution is for arbitron to repair its broken methodology and provide the accurate survey data that the broadcasting and advertising industries have a right to expect if arbitron is not providing a product that meets legitimate expectations for accuracy and reliability then the company should not be in a position to bind minority targeted radio stations to grossly expensive contracts for years in the future at the very least these broadcasts are should have the freedom to explore other options and seek a more responsible audience measurement service that cares about its mission in the absence of this minimal level of relief the committee should encourage the federal communications commission to exercise its authority under section four zero three of the communications act and institute a full albatros and represented that it is committed to the media rating council accreditation process do you agree that the m r c standard and its code do kind of ensure fair a believe that the m r c process does the results that you that you've just described well if that's the case why is it that you've only been approved in thirty two out of the thirty three i mean if that's the case i mean why would you continue to roll out if you really respect that process and feel that it's important i mean why would you continue to do that mr chairman arbitron follows the rules c process the m r c process does not require that a audience measurement service provider obtain accreditation prior to commercialization the process to obtain accreditation can take many many years and this is the industry practice that audience measurement service providers and not only in radio but in television the important step before commercialisation is that an audit is conducted as mr ivy has described by a third party in the case of arbitron ernst and young is the third party auditor who audits our mark it's prior to commercialization and the audit process is a very lengthy thorough started in two thousand and two and they have probably ten or eleven accredited accredited markets at this point in time and are still seeking accreditation so this is the industry practice let's face it now we talking about thirty three markets and you only have approval in two i mean i could see maybe one to two over and then you still working on it but i mean to me that seems like just totally  that not a government organization we're no authority and we were not designed to prevent a commercial enterprise from rolling out a product we don't have that type of authority however we do have until it's accredited and we also say that we would prefer that a rating service doesn't continue an accredited service before they get accreditation of a new product so those preferences are stated but you know that because of and recommendations in this did making the changes you just read the rollout and i'm afraid that you're going to kill some of these radio stations you know if you continue to do this and not mine i mean some of them will be gone you know by the time many of these things might even be dealt with that all mr chairman we have a very active program to improve our service based on the recommendations that we have received from not only from our customers but also from mr ivy and the m r c staff and we don't feel that the service is flawed we actually that for nine markets including the new york market our performance in two thousand and nine is very very strong and we feel we're performing at a level that deserves m r c accreditation and i believe that we have supplied to the committee the actual reports that we submitted to the m r c last month to comment on our performance and  show the trends and to show where we are in particular markets including new york so we welcome the suggestions for improvements we're making these improvements  mr commented on the training activities we have a very very extensive training program to bring in and oriented a new panel as we have local market coaches who go out into the field and help with a panelist as a matter of fact two saturdays ago i spent the afternoon with one of our local market coach is in prince george's county here here in maryland and worked active in trying to get all of our panelists to participate at at a performance level and we feel certainly in the case of new york in these nine markets eight other markets that were performing at a level also looking at the fact that there was one station in new york in particular that was rated number one and now that states is number fifteen without moving any place going into place doing anything you know what the point is correct some of these recommendations over the past two years but i would with all due respect mr chairman we have implemented many of these recommendations we have a program of over sixty initiatives that we have worked on and and employed across all of our p p m markets so i i don't think it's correct to say that we are not making we are not acting on these recommendations that we're not making these was a showstopper the company would not go to currency let's look at what the problem was that was not enough to go to currency thirty forty fifty sixty percent declines in ratings for some stations if there had been a new technology that had that impact on voter participation or on school segregation or unequal employment or on fair housing or environmental protection that would be a showstopper by any standard it would be a national scandal because this affects democracy so deeply it is just as much of a scandal the other thing that disturbed me was and i appreciate the good intentions that the company is going to begin to develop an engage ent index the difficulty is the debts been a recommendation that we've been waiting for for three years and it's not that difficult and they just comes a time when you just can't rely alone on promises and have to begin to do  basic problems we have some basic concerns had they stopped and addressed those we probably wouldn't have thirty three markets out there that have identical flaws the problem today is that while there are thirty three that need fixing or thirty one that need fixing it gets much much more difficult and more costly to fix and unless there is some way and some stoppage and some way to go back and fix the basic flaws we will sixty years in the meantime minority radio stations are experiencing a precipitous drop in their ratings and a corresponding loss in advertising revenues i've learned that companies like when he's young whose main market is a spanish speaking population has decided to opt out of the p p m measurement system because it no longer makes business sense and as a result there is no other measurement options and there are other drastic situations such as a seventy percent decline in radio station ratings for for certain stations and one station going from a ranking of one to twenty one and in fact that station no longer exists on the airways this seems to me like a very drastic situation and it's been going on for at least six years and yet from what i hear from you it seems like you you see this as no problem you see the situation is not a problem and so i want to know does your do you even think of this  as a problem and if so then is your company taking any steps to rectify the situation diary to the electronic form of measurement was something that was desired by the radio industry we worked with the radio industry to develop p p m technology the concerns of our customers are we're very sensitive to the concerns of our customers the issue of a loss is not something that has occurred listener did listen to those stations but actually listen to four or five other stations and didn't listen to radio eight hours a day so what we do is measure exposure to radio and the fact that in the diary there was a radio because of the great loyalty of radio listeners the diary keeper was saying i listen to just these t opposed to just a recall factor and i think this is a important point that it has affected a variety of different broadcasters and in a variety of different formats talk radio christian radio radio urban radio talk radio host sean hannity had a sixty decline when we moved from diary to p p m and it was in this experience that while there was there where there is a loyal base of listeners that the listeners were doing more than listening to sean hannity and and the in the exposure to radio that you  you see that there is a greater selection a greater number of radio stations that the listeners is covering and that they're actually not listening to radio eight hours a day so i presume you're saying there is no problem those of any other demographic actually though i do see one big problem which has to do with the lack of spanish speaking participants in your p p m ratings panels in fact i have a very large hispanic population in my district in california and i think this is a very serious deficit what efforts have you been made to have made to ensure that there is more spanish speaking participants so that there is a more accurate rating any changes in the demographics so that for a given market we would have as many percentage wise as many males and females as there are in the census data updated annually by the issues and this is an illustration of one issue this young panelists panelists that are eighteen to thirty four year olds in atlanta and how they cooperated with the p keep in mind that thirty percent of the people don't carry their or don't don't have their data process but one of the things that we've noticed during two thousand and nine that rate went down you can see the decline in that sixty five which means thirty five percent of the panelists of that age group don't carry their p p m on the don't comply with that methodology on the average day and then so on  issues like this a level that we believe with a collective loading of the membership are appropriate we don't have written standards for what that is because every meter technology is different in the diary is different but  because causality is always a difficult issue under the best of circumstances i take it the panel would agree that with the growth and people of color in our country that radio should see a growth overall and listeners from people of color could we agree on that said they did anything eight hours a day what have i understood that that meant that they weren't doing back continually so i was you know i'm impressed by the difference and what you capture i'd be much more impressed with seeing vats captured with a a a a sample rather than one man i can pick out one man any day of the weekend prove anything you would like i understand what you're getting at but until you show me a sample that shows that kind of pattern i'm not sure i'm convinced look what's at issue here maybe the life and death of one of the most viable industries for people of color so obviously they're going to be some concern in the in the in the congress about that and the particularly about these fluctuations  sensitive to what's happening to every business of every kind in the united states that the only entity able to write a check today is the united states government and that's because we don't have to have the money in the bank so i understand that every industry is affected and yet it would seem to me that there's an obligation on the revenue for all these declines equally among stations that serve as majority populations and minority populations no difference whatsoever that there have been in terms of revenue declines there have been the same revenue declines percentage wise for the general market as has been the case for hispanic  which we know to be largely white as opposed to stations which target areas where the population is minority have you back kind of research on which you would base what you have just said to this committee congresswoman  are you in fact telling this committee that all the other minorities stations have to do is to do what radio one did alter their programming and all right congresswoman we're not in the business of advising radio broadcasters what to do and of course the programming decisions or the decisions made by individual broad correctly recognizes that this is not the only problem the only burden facing minority radio stations also are burdened by lack of access to capital by weaker signals historically by outdated engineering rules by not enforcing and by advertisers that won't consider advertising on them simply because of the race of members of the audience those problems of for years and not withstanding them as horrible as they are stations continue to perform well in those formats until they get disrupted by p p m you see the numbers collapse in the markets where currency has been under as has been granted and only in those markets over the last two years have the numbers collapsed that's about as clear a case of causation as you can see it's certainly justification for this kind of practice that there are other deficiencies it was no is that true based on the last time i saw ratings data that is not true of the decline there has been declines across english language stations and urban stations and spanish stations but the decline for minority stations have been significantly larger than they have been for the other stations mr chairman could i could i ask that the data was relying on the submitted to the chairman so this committee can evaluate that data for itself with with yes i'd be happy to provide the data without objection to receive it gentleman from california thank you mr chairman for problem is that the census has a historical tendency to undercount youth low income and minority households i said on the census septimus and one of the things i brought to the attention of the director of the census is that in certain areas there is always an undercount and because of that undercount we are denied the funds that should come  based on a certain demographic do you account for this historical account of the senses when compiling data and if so how do you do it we would focus on the total market to get a representative sample would be to use both the census data and the from a third party private not the government but from a third party private firm that looks at census and tries to update it for any possible ships that occur within a given here but to go after a representative sample and to care for particularly african american or hispanic listeners we focus on what we call high density areas and try to get as representative a group of african american and hispanic listeners before the total market with certain high density areas let me just say that's one of the problems yes there are high density but they don't get counted and i am a witness of that i live in the commune and i can tell you that because of the fear some of our non english speaking citizens people have they don't give an accurate account so i usually call in the census people and tell them how to go about the count you go out on a sunday after church services you go to the park to go to the parking lot you go above the liquor stores and the cleaners and you can get a better indication we are historically undercounted and it hurts as you mentioned as a success story it's not and i was so disappointed that the people i usually go in  the county level at the city level at the state level and at the federal level that's one of my problems so i i don't want to be that critical of the use of portable people meter the p p m and we find it's not focused on the underlying technology but on the method used to recruit people who have their radio habits measured and you stated that arbitron plans to increase the sample size by ten percent beginning in two thousand and ten but i worry this is insufficient because since the introduction of the p p m the panels have become sixty six percent smaller and my question is why did i ever try to reduce their panel size by sixty six congress congresswoman when we moved from the diary to the pm we had given market paper and pen diary and we would issue this for two weeks of the year two weeks in diary versus the it's a multiplier of probably eight a factor of increase of eight to get the data and the timely and granular data minute by minute what are you listening to as between p m and diary so in making that migration or transition from the pen and paper diary to we reduced our panel size because my concern here and what i believe is part of the problem and why we're here we the customers have talked we have sat in meetings and we have in your district would accept chairing a major producer years on the basis of getting a telephone call asking them to do so the people who live in your area the people who are listening to urban radio who are listening to spanish radio are among the groups that are the hardest to get to cooperate and because they're so hard to get to cooperate you can't just call them on the phone and ask them to do it you might be able to call them and ask them to fill this out for a week you can't call and ask them to carry this around for two years it's a very different task and so the people who do agree to do it are less representative and not represented the of those listeners that are listening to urban radio and listening to spanish radio and therefore they're not represented you get the older members of those minority groups you don't get the younger members of those minority groups and all the waiting in the world can't adjust for a bad sample i just have to comment and i'll get back to that minute part of part of it but to our kids are going around with their i phones and their cell phones and so on they're certainly not going to carry that could be that there are other pieces of equipment and it creates a problem for us in the community i think you  well i don't think i think there are a lot of people who would make other choices and i think there are other people who aren't in this room or representative represented by anyone that's on any of the panels that would make other choices we're the only ones that are aware of the failings of the current rating system and again it's not the technology i'm talking about it's sam getting them to to agree to be in the sample and then provide agree to carry it in a certain amount of them don't and the more that agree to carry it out of the original sample the better the sample is the enrollee let me ask you a question about that follow up in the comments you've made in mi n what's the percentage of people who agree initially actually end up dropping out well so if you look at the response rate for the service which is i approached a thousand people to carry this device how many of them actually agreed those numbers are ranging from i'm not asking a question of those who agree what's the what's the dropout rate it's in general across the population it's about twenty five percent twenty five but if you look at that yes i have a limited amount of time if i can answer the question i was going to turn to in a second twenty five percent is your estimate of the people on p p m who drop out but that's differential lot of measurement from people are allowed to do that but then forty percent of young african americans fall out of tabulation because they don't care that puts even more stress on your sample if you're relying on that target then you're relying on that representing the local area here in the national capital region mr put his finger i think with the best of intentions by methodology can lead to results that have devastating impacts minority owned broadcasters and radio stations and we've already seen that here in the national capital region so i thank you for holding this hearing and i look forward to working with arbitron and others to see if we can make sure that we're all at a certain comfort level with the a little bit you called yourself a customer now aren't you really an audited but not a customer in the true sense when you buy the results to buy the results you're somewhat of a customer but entitled to the best accounting available and that's what you have to ask for is the best most accurate numbers available which is the best available ok so i'm going to go however however overall it was a skewed toward the hard to get groups hard to get to carry groups is that true we do pay a differential incentive in some markets where having problems getting that  differential is a term for more correct ok so you pay more when you believe you're not getting because level of carry that you need to get the accuracy you need we do and some of  tendency as evident when you were doing paper diaries as it is when they're carrying a completely accurate electronic device in terms of a differential response yes yes it was so you already had this this is not a new problem this is a problem that already  existed it would be would have been and we do have a diary market today for the markets number forty nine three three hundred three so we do see that in the diary ok so we do have a problem young people love to carry a cell phone but have a problem with a high carry rate with the well congressman that was congresswoman watson suggestion to us and actually that that's a next generation product for us that we're looking at soon as you get that diane and i don't have to be in a public hearing right well i certainly don't don't view it as being b rated like anytime you're called monopolistic at the opening you've got a little bit of a problem with the day as i am concerned along with the chairman that that in fact there's an accuracy question i'm going to close with one question i want to be very succinct here today is the electronic machine the p p m machine in dispute as to its accuracy here today is there anyone this disputing it i only want to see a yes if you're disputing the accuracy of the product is it is it reasonably fail safe ok no response what we have is a better piece of equipment what i hear today is that your purported customer and i view the advertiser having been an advertiser as your most important customer because i demand the accuracy to in order to make good decisions with my money which ultimately i'm her customer  an advertiser and that's that's what we're trying to achieve when we're on the other side of it can you just briefly tell us how does this committee have a high confidence that with an accurate piece of equipment you're going to take care of the other problems that today have been called in doubt and mr liggins is going to be up in a minute and he is a little different than this first panel he had actually although he was going to talk about the same problems he's hopeful that you're going to get there would you tell us how you're going to get to the level of accuracy knowing that the tool isn't the problem but in fact that these other problems exist what are you going to do in the next twelve months so you don't have to be back here again congressm we are improving our performance mr ivy put up some charts there and talked about how we're performing in certain levels if you were to look at in appendix b of our written testimony we have the data for all of our markets that goes through the month of november we're performing at a much higher level for all markets it's based on improvements that we're making to the sample size in the sample quality that we're making across the board we're getting these suggestions from our customers and from the m r c staff and we're committed making our service the very best service that it can be thank you very much if anyone else wants an answer briefly thank you congressman first i should have put my hand up when you asked if anyone questions the accuracy of it because it's accurate if you're talking about measuring stations that are encountered if what you're trying to find out is what people listen to it isn't and can't possibly be accurate because people often in conversation and they're not listening they're not paying attention they're not listening to the advertisements the other question is that i think you're going to is really the heart of what we're here for which is what is the duty of care these things are understandably relative but we have a lot of precedent on that this is somewhat analogous to the reason why we hold surgeons to a higher standard than general practitioners what we have here is a company engaged in the highest level of statistical research this isn't a sophomore statistics learning how to do this and you find surprisingly someone who used to teach sophomore statistics you find grossly and representative samples by race ethnicity and age you find the lack of a measure of engagement such that those who command high loyalty whether it be black or spanish radio personalities or sean hannity or undercount are under counted now i'd be happy to hear more but the chairman has limited ability to give me time and this hearing is strictly on the diaries versus the p p m so to a great extent we're trying to limit how with the new tool changes need to be made to be more accurate we can't necessarily look at at the entire history of everything that's not right with this company so congressman univision did not break their contract with us the contract was up for renewal they did not renew so that's the specific issue around univision we feel that we have a solid methodology and solid technology we believe that we have a very very strong performance in two thousand nine and we think we have a representative and valid survey and we're proud of what we do and we are confident that we are  contact arbitron when he did his study we're aware that he published his report we have been in contact with the m r c staff about that report and about that issue and we don't feel the system we use in san bernadino is the system we're implementing across the country the system in houston was developed and set up at a time when we were working in cooperation with nielsen happened in riverside is that performance has fallen way down so riverside looks very similar to the other markets so the complex question what do we do with riverside we've accredited riverside arbitron has and we're trying to assess what we do with riverside it is a credit right now we made a decision to accredit it it's difficult for us to remove accreditation we're trying to figure out what to do with it how to get our trying to be constructive improve it just like the other markets so this is a challenging issue here trying to get these markets to have good performance that is sustained urge to look at this chart for riverside thank you now it is true that houston has a totally different methodology  several areas in person recruitment be in person coaching so houston is a different system than the other markets but it's the riverside is the site thank you very much thank you jim they very much let me  know no anything and that if you decide to roll something out you roll it out and of course if if done and done very quickly and i don't see the kind of commitment that i would like to see and i'm telling you you know i'm one that do believe in legislation and i want to know that and i'm hoping that we can work this out and come up with some kind of agreement before we move you know any further but the point is that you know if we do not you know because i'm looking you say the f c c has no due role m r c you know and they  volunteer they there's good if they want to be invited you know you invite them and not you tell them go home you know i mean i understand all that but at the same time i'm concerned about the fact that these minority stations which under represented right now you know that over the last thirty years we've done a little something and now to lose that really bothers me and i think you need to know that before we leave we need to make certain that there's going to be some movement here that's going to make it possible for the have the kind of reporting that's going to be accurate and to make certain that these stations are able to stay around because what i hear of a station that's number one and you change the system it becomes i'm a fifteen i mean i you know i just have problems understanding that just from a number standpoint so i just want to make that clear we're going to let this panel go and we will be we we will come back at one thirty and of course thanks again but i want to let you know that i'm troubled and we need to make certain that something is done here that brings about the kind of accuracy that's going to help in terms of the stations to be able to advertise get business and i understand the economic situation i don't think i'm you know but when i look at that twenty percent difference you know i have to look at that and also the other question is i your bottom line versus you know what it was when you had the paper diary versus what it is now you know that's an issue you know when i think that you might be cutting corners at the same time you're cutting people out industry his company owns seventeen radio stations which targets african americans and urban audiences in new york city san francisco jackson mississippi and columbia south carolina it is the second largest african american already a station company in the united states welcome we also have frank flores start his career in the broadcasting industry had nineteen eighty one since then he has worked his way up from sales associate as a local station to this current position chief revenue officer and new york market manager for spanish broadcasting systems welcome m urban listeners with fifty two ready all stations located in sixteen urban markets mr liggins is responsible for the overall management and operations already a one asset welcome thank you  jessica patton mini serves as a chief operating officer for bromley communications and a firm as well as a vice chair for the association of hispanic advertising agencies  arbitron also switch from paper diaries to p p m in the san francisco market in september of two thousand and eight and our station k b l x f m took a similar hit in that market in the spring ratings as adults twenty five to fifty four average quarter hour was a point five first p p m report gave the station average quarter hour point three a drop of forty percent since then each monthly p p m survey has shown a decrease of anywhere from six to twenty percent from the previous diary results the same pattern shows up for stations serve an african american and hispanic audiences in other markets when ratings are introduced him in philadelphia's top rated station according to the paper diaries suffered a forty four point four percent decline in its average quarter hour ratings for listeners twelve years old and older even more damaging was a fifty seven point one percent decline in its primary target demographics of adults twenty five to fifty angeles station owned and operated by stevie wonder and managed by miss karen slade who's an attendance here today suffered an eighty four percent audience decline and dropped from number twenty in that market to number forty with affective unaccredited ratings method ology plummeting ratings have shown up again and again for status targeting african american and expanded audiences in other markets where overdrive is introduced p p m ratings for stations using formats appealing to general audiences have been nowhere near as significantly affected we do not believe the rating shifts are the result of the electronic measurement technology itself but rather they stem from the methodology that arbitron employe companies relied on telephone solicitation to recruit p p m survey panelists instead of address based contacts this change alone leaves out households with unlisted numbers and those are like school supply on cell phones young urban blacks and hispanics are more likely to rely exclusively on cell phones than the average u s household arbitron is try to make up for this with separately for separate cellphone only samples but the numbers have been too small additionally arbitron is demanding its p p m panelists make longer term commitments to carry around a pager size device from the time they rolled out of the bed until they returned at night congressional hearings back in sixty four made it obvious that ratings play a key role in the economic commercial radio nonprofit m can be accredited the houston project was a joint venture and it did demonstrate to the p p m survey can be accredited but the recruiting process necessary is expensive more than arbitron wants to spend has been unwilling to invest in resources with faulty methodology we are dedicated to serving minority audiences in a market where we have stations as are other broadcasters who are members of the p p m coalition it will be a far easier path to jettison this mission a programme to ratings burden to run of the mill plain vanilla format larger broadcasters with clusters of stations in a market can already do that by shuffling formats among their stations as minority owners we have a strong sense of responsibility to us providing broadcast services that otherwise would be unavailable our coffers however are not bottomless and our ability to sustain a business in the face of these problems is ultimately limited attorneys generals in four states have made attempts to ameliorate these problems but even the simple concept of requir be secure m r c accreditation as thus far not we believe that this committee should send a strong message to the industry that something must be done to preserve diversity of programming and ownership and broadcasting require an and chairman towns ranking member and honorable members of congress thank you for the opportunity to address the house committee on oversight and government reform regarding the serious challenges and repercussions of the rollout and use of arbitron personal people meter companion a vice chair of the association of hispanic advertising agencies and c e o of bromley communications a minority owned hispanic advertising agency represents ninety eight percent of hispanic specialized agencies in the united states and more than one hundred related industry suppliers such as research firms media companies production companies all of which the vast majority of our small businesses i'm here today because the specialized advertising industry is facing severe consequences resulting from the implementation of p p m currency my testimony here is a culmination of numerous attempts and years of effort and resources to resolve sampling methodology challenges with arbitron and successfully arbitron continuous improvement plan has yet to alleviate our concerns what we need is a commitment to when we can expect p p m to be accredited and i pray that it's before more minority stations are forced out of business there are two points that i'd like to make one we support electronic measurement we believe wholeheartedly that the industry move needs to move in that direction and that p p m technology more accurately measures listening versus diary this is not about p p m vs diary it's rather about the methodology that fuels the data in addition while we may only represent a handful of arbitron clients we are the ones that have a vested interest in the accurate measurement of minority audiences it is our bread and butter our goal is to ensure that radio sampling methodology is reliable and fair that our hot agencies and members can adequately deliver consumers and ultimately sales for advertisers we depend on the independent and endorsement of accrediting bodies such as the media and rating media ratings council provide us with the confidence we need to make appropriate media buying decisions because our membership represents a growing but smaller portion of the market as compared to the general market agencies and radio broadcasting companies we don't have the resources to verify the data and subsequently rely heavily on the m r c the bottom line is that hispanic listeners are being represented in accurately by arbitron and while arbitron is making great leaps and rolling out p p m they're only making small improvements in methodology such as increasing the number of cell phone only households those changes are insignificant compared to the damaging impact that the rollout is ha on our on our industry we need sustainable change and improvement on the sample now before additional markets are converted to this new currency radio is a critical element of our marketing mix and has been the backbone of our advertising outreach efforts for decades ethnic stations that were once ranked at the top have dropped significantly in the reported audience levels and ppm market california texas and florida which are becoming majority minority how is it possible that arbitron improperly measure these audiences in closing what we ask is that arbitron is really forced to gain accreditation in these markets it's key for the success of the industry and has devastating impact agencies broadcasters and advertisers alike thank you very s is the largest publicly traded hispanic controlled media and entertainment company in the united states today as p s owns and operates twenty radio stations in hispanic markets of new york los angeles miami chicago san francisco and puerto rico including four of the top rated spanish language radio stations airing the tropical mexican regional spanish adult contemporary and herb and format for the purposes of brevity and not to not to recount everything that's been said before let me just summarize a couple of important points for all intents and purposes arbitron is an unregulated monopoly the only recognized source of radio ratings in the us today especially in the markets where we operate radio stations s b s the company has had an unborn wish history as a client in good standing with arbitron for over a quarter century s p s was the first group owner to sign up for p p m s p s was the first minority broadcaster to sign up for p p m s p s wholeheartedly supports elec tronic measurement of all radio audiences however and this is a big point significant modifications and alterations need to be undertaken in order for p p m to accurately reflect the listening levels of all minority audiences the effects of p p m on spanish radio have been devastating and in direct contradiction to the years of rating results provided by the debt diary methodology worse yet arbitron is charging up to sixty percent more for its p p m ratings than it did for its diary ratings s has offered to assist arbitron in conjunction in cooperation with other radio colleagues in working on a universally accepted resolution to this p p m issue let me further state that the entire industry has been affected by the economy and some will say that the economy in large part is solely responsible for the down trend in our business but there can be no argument that the radius produced by the p p m methodology has also added greatly to our inability to price our inven tory on a competitive basis lending to these historic declines in revenue in closing the fact that our business the business of minority broadcasting has been unfairly affected by the im implementation of p we as a company are committed to finding a way to resolve our issues for the betterment of our company and our ability to serve our community we are hopeful with working with all parties including arbitron to find these solutions our goal is to achieve a more accurate and stable result in ratings that reflect a more representative count of where minority listeners the best way in our opinion would be m r c accreditation in all markets and we are resolute to be met let me introduce myself i'm alfred legan c e o of radio want to cooperate and as you've heard earlier where the largest media company targeting african americans in the united states we're multi platform company that includes radio internet satellite our nationally distributed cable network t v one as owner of fifty two radio stations located in sixteen urban markets i want to express both my support and confidence in the future of urban radio in a p p m world my understanding is that during this hearing you are asking does p p m affect the diversity of radio and is it contributing to minority radio's decline i categorically say that i believe in both the short and long run p p m is neither affecting the diversity diversity of our airwaves nor contributing to the klein a minority radio rather what the p p m has done is exposed some poor choices made during the good times before this recession hit some broadcasters became over leveraged including ourselves and perhaps expanded when they should not have and some broadcasters launched urban formatted stations in markets where there are already established urban radio stations many that we have owned and many that our colleagues in the minority radio business have owned and we do competitors that we should not have i do not believe that the commercialization of p p m is to blame for the problems currently facing some minority broadcasters based on our own p p m experience p p m does not discriminate against minority owned broadcasters or format it stations are always short term dislocations and a learning curve when a new technology is adopted but p p m is the new reality and i would much rather get reality on the road now and keep it moving forward than to delay it to heat it dispute and controversy result primarily from the fact that the p p m device as compared to the paper diary can have a downward impact on the average quarter hour rating or a q h which is a result of dramatically increased cume audiences combined with lower amounts of time spent listening to the average quarter hour reading numbers with p p m are generally lower for most stations and all markets regardless of format radio one has seen dramatic declines in its ratings after p p s commercial commercialization in a market however by designing our programming for a p p m world including fine tuning our music promotions and commercial breaks we have regained most if not all of our pre p p m rank positions without changing formats although our audiences are smaller our rank has returned and in many cases that ranks as number one two or three in different markets the reduction in requests reported average quarter hour listing from diary to p p m is not in my opinion caused by racial bias but rather is due to the fact that the diary is a subject tool that asked for to supposed to recall from memory what stations they listen to on the radio in my experience the diary service has a bias in favor of legacy stations or programs with a strong brand name or identity p p m is a more objective measurement tool that plays no favorites and allows all stations to compete for listeners on a level playing field the p p m is without question a major improvement over the diary service it gives broadcasters a type of granular and timely data that the diary system simply cannot provide for the first time we can evaluate on a minute to minute minute by minute basis the listening habits of our audience when they tune in how long they listen and when they switch to another radio station this level of specificity allows us to respond almost in real time to listeners tastes and show advertisers that we can attract listeners to our programming that in turn translates into revenue for broadcasters as a result of the internet advertisers expect timely information to respond to ever changing customer preferences no matter the media advertisers expect to see how many eyes and ears are paying attention p p m is doing that for radio bob providing clear act intelligence on radios audience p p m is not universally adopted the radio industry is in danger of losing advertising dollars to other mass media and information platforms that half past of measurement systems p p m contributes to advertisers perception of the strength and value of brand conscious and brand loyal african american consumers who have almost a trillion dollars to spend annually in short electronic measurement provides compelling evidence about the power of urban radio through m radio one has been able to deliver reliable and credible measurement of our audience to advertisers some has said that p p m should take a breather especially until it is fully accredited by the media ratings council my response is an emphatic no as that would confuse advertisers who now rely on p p m and cause them to question the read reliability of radio as an advertising medium it would hurt the radio industry not just arbitron while we acknowledge that arbitron has not created a perfect service in my opinion we need to move forward p p m adapt to it monitor arbitrage progress and offer our suggestions and concerns work with arbitron to make it better and look forward to better times for all of the radio industry thank you for this opportunity was in the position to have the people talk first in the agencies come behind them but i notice that you know we don't have to do that today they staying and they're listening to you to me i want you to know i am impressed with that because they appear to be concerned about   provided with more data to better inform us of why they were taking the positions that they were taking it is our sense that there was not a willingness to address the issue but more of a willingness to provide context on their position on the issue we've had continual conversations with the good folks at arbitron trying to see if we could work out whatever  issues there are on the table i can tell you that we've been in this fight for about two years a little over two years and they're at least they're at the point where they're willing to listen to in my involvement in this issue i believe the m r c is a necessary body i believe there's a lot of smart people there working to make sure that we have accurate measurement and research but i think one of the problems that you have with the m r c it's a it's a bit of a black box in that there aren't any defined benchmarks that some company like arbitron can meet or hit in order to to get accreditations it of the process and how long it takes and the fact that there's never a right answer it's just a notification when we feel that you've met the criteria so if it was possible to have  that was set where arbitron if they hit these metrics then they could get a credit i think that this would be a lot more practical and workable but we're stuck with the system that we have the m r c is what it is and as long as results in the the new york area when we asked the arbitron representatives had they taken country of origin into into account they said why would we and for people who operate in the hispanic hispanic from the caribbean music taste or difference there their language is slightly different what works on the west coast will not work and what works on the south east coast might not necessarily work on the on the northeast coast it is that diverse and different so if country of origin is not taken into account well then you know all you need is one format for the hispanic and so be it and that's not the case that's not the case at all so even something that we would think would be a give them was a revelation they looked at us and they said why would we care about that and now they've come around and now all of a sudden they're examining country of origin and that's part of what they're looking into that's and that's quite a different stance than they had in the very beginning so and i think that that attributed to some of the initial results that we were looking at th so that could be part of why some people are disenchanted with the results to a certain extent the more information you have it's got to change results of the results are going down or up that could be a factor  it definitely could be a factor and we're talking about results there's an important factor that no one's talked to about this morning and someone mentioned the economy and someone mentioned how that's affected our business and as i mentioned in my opening testimony could be no doubt that the economy has affected our business but when you have ratings sixty or seventy percent less than they were before and you have a deep press will never indicate the value that radio being on will have to a particular advertiser that numbers along will never cover it that is correct number numbers cover that and we certainly  value to the advertisers of what you have offered other words if you're just a commodity rated completely based on arbitron numbers and your revenue completely rises or falls with those numbers and nothing else isn't it true that in fact this would be devastating i'm not saying it isn't devastating but would be devastating and there'd be no recourse but don't you in fact have to deal with what is the value and how do you demonstrate that advertisers on an individual basis after they've looked at your will not any where near anywhere near make up for the landslide and falling revenue that you will have on the margin you can demonstrate value but advertising in this country is largely bought on cost per thousand as demonstrated by ratings and whether that's on the internet or whether it's television or whether that's an outdoor message so yes you can create value advertising is priced on supply and demand so the more people who want your spots the higher price you can pay so of you actually perform well for a large number of businesses the more businesses will want the ads and you raise the rates but the fact the matter is many advertisers don't even really track the response to you c that's ratings weren't cut exactly in half but probably close to forty percent and the revenues down forty to fifty percent but i had other radio stations that did better because it showed us having more audience under p p m than the diary did so net net net i was a fan of more accurate ratings because i felt that we would ultimately be better off her in some places but helped in many others so i think it's a because all four of you are basically here to tell us that minorities are being undercounted and that this problem is not diaries but it is a problem and you want to get it right i'm going to ask each of you what results raw numbers and they take various algorithms if you will that have historically shown to be accurate particularly when there was an election day going to be because the people that are actually listening and buying difference between the numbers and what it really means or will mean predictively on election day and i don't do it very often but i've done it enough what have you done as industry leaders to create some sort of a legitimate a here is what you've said here is what our research not with your failures are because we understand they've admitted that they want to make it better i know they're working with you and others to try to make it better but what have you done to actually say here's your number here's a reality blank faces have any of you or collectively done anything so that you can come back and say here is the proof that our number of listeners is different and we have just seen consistently the challenges that are there arbitron offered for example to work with our company and work with other minority broadcasters who they also looking at the numbers just looking at the numbers realized that we were o the last p p m at a cost to the broadcasters who quite honestly we were being asked to pay sixty five percent more with this methodology with less results that was something that at that point was premature because we could not get a representative sample we reached out to other broadcasters to ask them to look at the results of their their marketplace and what was going on and let us try to understand for example what is the story of the african american consumer in african american radio stations in this new p p m world there was no story to tell unfortunately without understanding are we talking about a representative panel which in two thousand and nine we still not been able to get through so as a as a is more narrow than that you know we can't we can't deal with the differences between loyalty etc etc in some way from here and neither can arbitron what they can do and what i hope that we're helpful here today on the day is because we are on a bipartisan basis very concerned is if in fact your real effective numbers should be weighted in some way to where an advertiser and i used to be an advertiser can look and say wait a second here the  comparative value of being on one of your stations or one of any of your stations is an eight not a six and i'm looking at a rate and i'm assuming i'm going to pay so much per million is there you can you can probably make a lot of arguments about your listeners being better than that guy's listeners that's what i was leading to with mr liggins but from our standpoint if the number the effective number because of undercount who's willing to carry and i didn't say my name mark the two networks outperformed on a per dollar of advertising dollar many of the other competitors in our buy we did that because we wanted to know that's an advertiser you're the people who want to sell me in my  profession what are you doing to work with our tron or ask us to ask them to do to get that number right so that number doesn't have to be direct market checked by somebody like me but in fact you and the rating agency if you will that in a very analytical way it would be nice if we could afford to find another service to come in and give us what we would consider more accurate but at this point in some metric that isolated sort of passive exposure to what was really active listening would actually help minority targeted formats one of the things that's driven reason these minority radio stations including our target radio stations have such high ratings in the diary is because the diary keeper would say listen just draw a line that i listen to all day well actually minorities do listen to radio longer they're more engaged they take it more seriously if you were able to isolate that electronically somehow then you could show a different value actually what you would do is you would discredit the audience of the easy listening station that and this happens in p you get i think that they're working on that i know we're pushing for that that would be extraordinarily helpful in getting back to your other question and presenting value also say one more thing because because i think there's something that has been said here that i think needs to be said even if the playing field were right even if it's p p m because i can speak about it and i tell you when the playing field was right in the new all of two thousand and six in the new york area the number one morning show was a spanish language radio station that was owned and operated by now did we get the same rate and i can tell  panels very informative i intend on writing a letter to mr ron asking them to come back to us and tell us what they could do to do some of this analytical analysis without additional burden on our broadcasters particularly minority broadcasters i also for one would like to see those innovations and i would like to see as much information as the committee can request and arbitron can give us of side by side comparisons when a diary was being filled out and someone was carrying a device so that we could have a closure to all of the questions that i think were developed here today on electronic versus diary and hopefully we can be constructive diary method because diaries done in quarter hours programmers thought that the best way to get the highest ratings would be to stack all your commercials all at once and run ten of them at the same time with a very long wh stops so you could sweep music for forty minutes running one twenty minute block that's eighty percent commercials and you got a forty minute block that's commercial free well the fact of the matter is we found that that  does the exact opposite and p p m you're better off having more stops with actually fewer commercials and one of the things that you're also seen seeing in p p m is that the talk show hosts the that their ad revenues are following as well so what does that says that talk no matter how big a personality you are if it's not absolutely entertaining is a death nail so you have to be very one of those are draws and which one of which one of those are turned off and then you adjust your programming dramatically in fact tom has actually reformatted almost his entire show over the last two years because are coming in from countries that only speak spanish and they are arriving here with no english skills whatsoever so i know that that are already and should be increasing in numbers that are great and p p m shows it to be just the opposite arbitron database without the help black and hispanic formatted stations in houston texas because of katrina we think the black population is probably gone from sixteen and a half percent to twenty percent and where hopeful that that's what the advertiser and return a return on investment today they're not to be back tomorrow and that's a problem that we face we've got radio stations that have historically performed very well in the marketplace they don't have the numbers without the numbers we can't justify being them on a buy without being on a buy we have in effect a plan in market and it's very difficult advertisers today spend money in minority audiences and when you finally make that effort and get them to spend the money and they don't see the results they're not coming back and as far as the new arrivals how successful could you possibly be trying to convince them to wear some sort of low jack device o k when they come from con countries that they don't trust their own government and you think how successful you're going to be to get people to do that so maybe your panels or your samples are going to represent more english dominant hispanics than spanish dominant hispanics and that might be a problem for all hispanic radio stations because that's who we serve thank you very much let me thank you both panel of witnesses and of course some of the ranking member and all the members who attended this hearing today and before we adjourned i must say that today's hearing has demonstrated the ineffective process currently in place to ensure the accuracy in media rating services i remain gravely concern about the future of minority owned and targeted readier stations arbitron does not act quickly to correct these problems when artists have battled over the past thirty years to obtain just two percent of the radio stations they now have two percent and we are on the brink of losing much of that progress the congress should not allow this to happen  c s recommendations and just move on this approach must change and i'm prepared to introduce legislation which protects both the consumer and all read television competitors if necessary i hope i don't have to do that i hope that we can work things out the ranking member suggested that we have some further discussions and dialogue in the sea in terms of how we might be able to work together to resolve some of these issues in our can do that urge all the participate participants involved in this issue including the m r c and the f c c to work during the next month to reach a solution to this problem the very survival of small and minority radio is at stake i want to see a plan of action and a realistic timetable as the ranking member also suggested develop over the next thirty days to correct this display nable situation after that point i will look to see of sufficient progress has been made of whether the congress will need to step in we don't want to step in and i hope we don't have to step in but i want to know i am prepared to do whatever it takes to get an acceptable resolution to this problem again that me thank all of the witnesses i look forward to working with you because i