iPhone As Audience Measuring Device?

Will It Measure Radio?

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL is reporting that "some of the nation's biggest media companies and advertisers, seeking to develop new ways of measuring audiences, could make APPLE INC.'s iPHONE the vehicle for a study of how Americans consume media on a range of devices -- from TV sets to mobile phones to computers."

Radio is not specifically mentioned, but many in the industry have suggested for some time that ARBITRON move PPM devices to a smartphone platform, rather than making users carry a seperate device.

THE JOURNAL's SUZANNE VRANICA writes, the study would be one of the first major initiatives of THE COALITION FOR INNOVATIVE MEDIA MEASUREMENT, and says "the group is in talks to hire MEDIA BEHAVIOR INSTITUTE LLC, a NEW YORK media-research firm, to conduct a study in which participating consumers would get an iPHONE in exchange for agreeing to report their media use several times a day. The effort could get off the ground in the FALL, if approved by the group's board members, says CIMM."

The plan is to offer participants an iPHONE with an app installed that participants would use to log on to answer questions about what media they were watching or listening to.

"Right now we are trying to figure out how to make the budget fit the funding," said MEDIA BEHAVIOR INSTITUTE Co-Founder JIM SPAETH.

[Do you think a smartphone app would be a better way for radio measurement from ARBITRON or NEILSEN? Share your thoughts below.]

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