ARBITRON TO ADD CELL PHONE-ONLY SAMPLE IN '08 Mike Boyle – Billboard Big news from Arbitron: For the first time ever, the ratings company will recruit diary keepers by calling cell phones, starting in 2008. The development is significant because an increasing percentage of Americans rely exclusively on cell phones and have not been included in Arbitron ratings surveys.
Arbitron VP domestic radio research Dr. Ed Cohen Thursday afternoon led a conference call to discuss findings of a new research study into the listening habits of people who use cell phones exclusively and do not have a conventional landline telephone in their households.
“These people do have different patterns than landline respondents,” Cohen said, revealing the first study comparing the radio listening patterns of “cell phone-onlys” with landliners. However, “when you merge their data with the landline respondents there’s little change to the audience estimates.”
He also added that Arbitron research shows cell phone-only respondents tend to spend more hours listening to the radio, are more likely to be in the 18-24 and 25-34 demos and listen to radio formats that appeal to these age groups, such as modern rock, rock, top 40 and country.
Cohen confirmed that Arbitron indeed “can place diaries with cell phone-only respondents.”
Commenting on the federal ban on using automatic dialers to place calls to cell phones, Cohen characterized Arbitron having to let its fingers do the walking to homes without landlines, “not a lot of fun.”
And in a press statement released after the conference call, Arbitron pointed out that “while no definitive estimates for cell-only population exist today, the recent National Health Interview Survey estimates that approximately seven percent (7%) of the population is cell phone-only. The actual Arbitron study assumed a 10% figure for the population that can be reached only via cell phone - a higher incidence than indicated by the NHIS estimates.” |