She said advertisers familiar with the area will rarely pick a station solely on numbers. Other considerations include a station's format and strength of signal, as well as how best to reach the particular targeted market segment. Michael Gross, director of public affairs and marketing at Cape Cod Community College, said choosing a station by format alone can be dangerous for advertisers, especially those such as regional car dealerships or large store chains which might not know a particular area very well. To an advertiser the product is its listeners. Arbitron ratings are very valuable.
Advertising agencies live by that book.
Gross said the ratings help him tailor advertising to the many different demographic groups which potential community college students belong to. He added that last year the college conducted its own survey of CCCC students' radio listening habits and found no dramatic deviations between their results and Arbitron's. If you look at the different reports over a period of time, it's a pretty accurate view of radio audiences. Pahagian, Makkay, and Pickering also question whether the approximately 400 diaries used by Arbitron to establish local ratings fairly represent the Cape's population of 200,000, and they wonder how diligent and accurate the listeners keeping the diaries really are. Still, despite its flaws, all of the stations continue to pay for Arbitron's service.