Arbitron has announced that Médiamétrie — the provider of TV, radio, internet and cinema audience measurement in France — has signed a license agreement that will enable the independent media measurement company to evaluate Arbitron’s Portable People Meter system in Paris.
The Portable People Meter (PPM) is a new technology being developed by Arbitron that can measure audiences of cable and satellite television broadcasts as well as broadcasts from terrestrial, satellite and Internet radio stations. It is currently undergoing a U.S. market trial in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and has been selected as a media measurement tool in a number of countries around the world.
The two-year agreement will enable Médiamétrie to evaluate the PPM encoding system and the willingness of Parisians to keep the pager-sized PPM device with them as they go about their daily routines.
Médiamétrie will also appraise the radio and television ratings from the PPM and compare the ratings to the current audience measurement systems used in Paris, which are set-top people meters for TV and day-after telephone recall for radio.
“The Portable People Meter can give Médiamétrie an ideal measurement solution for multiple media, which will help them meet the needs of their key customers, both television and radio,” said Arbitron CEO Steve Morris. “We look forward to working with them to establish the Portable People Meter as the audience measurement methodology of choice for the dynamic French media marketplace.”
Managing Director of Médiamétrie Jacqueline Aglietta said: “This agreement offers Médiamétrie an excellent opportunity to confirm its interest in a new concept of television and radio audience measurement. We always work to provide our customers with audience measurement based on the most advanced technologies available. The opportunity to evaluate the Portable People Meter shows Médiamétrie’s willingness to anticipate media clients’ needs, in terms of audience measurement, that will allow them to know the public’s behavior.”
France joins a growing roster of countries around the world that currently use or have agreed to evaluate the Arbitron PPM technology, including: BBM Canada; Taylor Nelson Sofres in Singapore; Intomart bv Netherlands; IBOPE Media Information in five countries in Latin America and RAJAR in the United Kingdom.
The Portable People Meter is a pager-sized audience measurement device that is carried by consumers. It automatically detects inaudible codes that are embedded in the audio portion of broadcast programming.