Arbitron Revs Up 6.1% In Third Quarter, Announces New Deal With AdsWizz

Q3 Revs Of $105.6 Million, New Partnership

ARBITRON TODAY (10/25) announced financial results for the third quarter ended SEPTEMBER 30th, 2011.

The Company reported revenue of $105.6 million, an increase of 6.1% as compared to revenue of $99.5 million during the third quarter of 2010. Revenue increased on a quarter-over-quarter basis primarily as a result of commercializing the PORTABLE PEOPLE METER service in new markets during the fourth quarter 2010 as well as the continued phase-in of contracted PPM price increases.

Costs and expenses for the third quarter of 2011 were $77.2 million, a decrease of 1.8% from $78.6 million for the same period in 2010.

Earnings Before Interest, Income Tax Expense, Depreciation and Amortization for the quarter was $33.6 million, an increase of 32.4% compared with EBITDA of $25.4 million for the third quarter of 2010. The Company's EBITDA margin in the third quarter 2011 was 31.8%, an increase of 630 basis points from the EBITDA margin of 25.5 percent in the third quarter of 2010.

For the third quarter of 2011, net income was $15.4 million, compared with $11.3 million for the third quarter of 2010. Earnings per share (diluted) was $0.55 for the quarter versus $0.42 for the third quarter of 2010, an increase of 31%.

ARBITRON Pres./CEO WILLIAM T. KERR said, "In JULY, we acquired ZOKEM OY, a FINLAND-based mobile audience measurement and analytics firm. This acquisition further enhances our mobile measurement capabilities, which will be valuable for our future cross-platform initiatives.

"We continue to make promising steps in establishing ourselves in the market for cross-platform services. A proof-of-concept project awarded to ARBITRON by the COALITION FOR INNOVATIVE MEDIA MEASUREMENT to use a single-source panel to measure television, Internet and mobile usage is now up and running. We expect to deliver the first three-screen media insights to the members of CIMM in the fourth quarter.

"As we identify, and as appropriate, invest in these growth initiatives, we also continue to maintain and improve the quality of our radio ratings services. These efforts include the expansion of targeted in-person recruitment in our PPM markets, initiatives to improve the representation of cell phone households in our diary and PPM samples and research into a web-based alternative to the paper and pencil diary."

New Deal With AdsWizz

ARBITRON announced on this morning's earnings call that the company had partnered with ADSWIZZ.

EVP/COO SEAN R. CREAMER said, "In terms of our total radio measurement initiatives -- we signed, last week, an agreement with ADSWIZZ, a leading provider of server-based ad serving and measurement solutions. ADSWIZZ will process the server-based, streaming log files exclusively for our planned digital radio service. This collaboration is designed to help us to realize our vision for providing standard reporting metrics for over the air and digital streaming audiences on behalf of our current radio broadcast customers and for digital music service clients. We are currently working with both our radio station clients and the digital service providers to develop the first report deliverables."

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