Arbitron quietly decided to get out of the streaming radio ratings business earlier this year and discontinued its relationship with comScore.
According to industry sources, Arbitron was unable to make money from the business faced with Ando Media, their main competitor, who charged little or nothing for the ratings and delivered them as a byproduct of its ad server business.
It’s important to note that the Arbitron comScore service was based on a national survey of 200,000 participants whose monthly listening habits were measured and then extrapolated into ratings data.
This data provided both demographic and gender information. National radio buyers will no longer have this audience data which most closely was compared to their already existing and accepted, Arbitron Nationwide audience data.
On the other hand, Ando Media provides data that is directly linked to the actual clearing of commercials, which more resembles the Arbitron RADAR measurement, with one exception: there is no demographic or gender information – a necessity for traditional radio buyers.
Future media buys based on Ando Media data will have to be evaluated based on the radio stream’s format, similar to the way digital advertising sells based on the website’s environment i.e. financial, sports, parenting, etc.
With Katz 360 backing Ando Media’s Webcast Metrics, it will now be the defacto industry standard for audience measurement given that it’s already being used by over 5000+ radio stations and the fact that Katz 360 has a 95% market share of all radio stations’ internet streaming commercial inventory.
[...] very quiet, because the only other mention of this I found was on the blog Internetradioworld in a post on April 9th: According to industry sources, Arbitron was unable to make money from the business [...]
[...] Go here to see the original: Arbitron and comScore end Internet Radio Ratings Service … [...]
[...] Arbitron has, in the past, rated Internet radio streams, originally with its “Arbitron Webcast Ratings.” Later, it revamped the service after acquiring Measurcast technologies. Most recently, it rating Net radio listening as a joint project with comScore (read RAIN coverage here). The service ended quietly in early 2009 (more coverage here). [...]
[...] Arbitron has, in the past, rated Internet radio streams, originally with its “Arbitron Webcast Ratings.” Later, it revamped the service after acquiring Measurcast technologies. Most recently, it rating Net radio listening as a joint project with comScore (read RAIN coverage here). The service ended quietly in early 2009 (more coverage here). [...]