The amazing opaque ratings service

You may have heard of Arbitron. Arbitron is a company that produces ratings of radio stations all over America by conducting surveys of listeners. Arbitron has had very little competition in recent years, so it has the lion's share of the radio ratings biz.

While it has usually appeared to be a fairly accurate service, folks have long questioned the results of Arbitron's surveys. In fact, Arbitron's credibility took a hit several years ago when it reissued the survey for Lima, Ohio, because Clear Channel told it to (because the initial release showed one of Clear Channel's stations performing poorly).

Arbitron produces surveys when and where broadcasting firms are willing to spend the money on one. So I guess Arbitron realizes it has to do what it can to keep these customers happy, even if it means less accurate ratings.

Lately, Arbitron has been rolling out its new Portable People Meter (PPM) ratings in larger cities. This has resulted in lawsuits by the states of New York and Florida because this method undercounts minorities.

It's astonishing that Arbitron made such a big production out of a new technology that produces less accurate ratings. But if Arbitron wants to put to rest the fears that the PPM system distorts ratings, the last thing the company should do is become less transparent.

So naturally, Arbitron has begun restricting access to its important presurvey bulletins that periodically describe changes to survey methodology and policies. These bulletins used to be posted online for anyone to see. But now they're available only to clients such as big radio execs.

(Not only that, but the site is designed for Internet Exploder 6. Welcome to 2 years ago, Arbitron. And it requires users to shut off their pop-up blocker.)

I'm not saying we have an absolute right to view all the methods used by a proprietary company. (Some of them are trade secrets, after all.) The real issue is Arbitron's opacity. You'd think that during a time of such controversy, Arbitron wouldn't want to make its methods more opaque. That just makes it look like Arbitron has something to hide that could dash its reputation.

How can we trust Arbitron when it hides some of the most basic information about its surveys?

(Source: http://www.fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=1414081)