Agencies Fear PPM Delay May Stagnate The Radio Market

Agency Issues?

For the past several months, agencies have spent time educating their clients about the transition to the PORTABLE PEOPLE METER method of radio measurement -- a system that has now been postponed in most markets until SEPTEMBER 2008 -- and some agencies fear the delay may harm the industry, reports MEDIABUYERPLANNER. Agencies have gone so far as to create new buying models to account for lower and different rating patterns produced by the PPM service and help clients to adjust budgets, and will now have to do it all over again in the nation’s largest markets, where billions of ad dollars are at stake, points out MEDIAWEEK.

MINDSHARE Sr. Partner/Dir. Of Local Broadcast RICHARD COTTER, is among other agency execs and a number of radio groups who fear that the delay will generate a backlash among advertisers who had already been losing faith in the diary system and in radio itself as an advertising medium. "It doesn’t help the industry," COTTER is quoted as saying.

CBS RADIO Pres./CEO DAN MASON says the decision sets NEW YORK -- and to a lesser extent LOS ANGELES and CHICAGO -- back, while EMMIS Pres,/Radio RICK CUMMINGS says that advertisers don’t need a lot of excuses to pull out of radio. "We don’t want to give them any more. It’s one of the reasons we support PPM."

Others feel the delay makes sense. "If the PPM rolled out and was contentious, I’m not sure how productive it would be," says INITIATIVE EVP/Broadcast Strategy JANICE FINKEL-GREENE.

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