Philly PPM's Dec 11th-Jan 7th Indexing Off Slightly

Holiday Bonuses To Panelists

With the holidays and all, ALL ACCESS got wind of this yesterday. ARBITRON told its PHILADELPHIA PPM clients, via a letter on CHRISTMAS EVE (12/24), of a slightly lower 6+ DDI (less than 100), during the DECEMBER 11th-JANUARY 7th survey period, which is delivered for the Holiday Survey (including CHRISTMAS and NEW YEAR'S) delivered on JANUARY 28th.

Several PHILLY broadcasters were not pleased with timing of the letter, and felt ARBITRON should have seen this one coming.

The letter notes: "In-Tab rates are typically lower over holidays. With CHRISTMAS and NEW YEAR's on THURSDAY this year, and most people off from work on the two FRIDAYS, there is potentially more of a decline than in past holiday surveys.

"Perhaps more significantly, "alternate" panel households in PHILADELPHIA began expiring in SEPTEMBER, and these expirations are not distributed evenly over the months. This condition is unique to PHILADELPHIA at this time in that PHILADELPHIA is the first market to begin expirations due to our two-year panel tenure limitation. So while we believe our turnover forecasts are correct over time, they were understated for specific months. This means that we must expire more households than we now forecast we will recruit, particularly given the higher difficulty of recruiting new households over the holidays.

"To help mitigate the DDI decline and achieve the projected 90-95 DDI, we are immediately offering a 'holiday bonus' to panelists for meeting their point goals during this period. Past experience with this type of special incentive has shown it can be effective in improving In-Tab rates over short periods of time.

"Key demographic groups, including 18-34 and 18-54 total Black and total Hispanic, are expected to remain in the 90s. We expect to recover for the JANUARY survey, delivering a 6+ DDI of 100 or greater."

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