LonWorks Solution Receives High Ratings with Arbitron
Arbitron, Inc. is an international media and marketing research firm best known for measuring network and local market radio audiences across the United States. Accurately determining the size and demographics of a listening audience at any given time—particularly within a local market—can be a costly and challenging feat. A new monitoring system incorporating Echelon LonWorks technology is giving Arbitron a revolutionary, cost-effective audience measurement tool.
Is Anyone Listening?Radio, TV, and cable channels all live or die by the size of the audience they attract. Higher ratings translate into higher ad revenues—the lifeblood of broadcasting. The backbone of such audience statistics has been volunteers who agree to provide data on what they watch or listen to. For electronic measurement of TV, for example, Nielsen Media Research sends a technician out to the house to wire up a box to the TV set. |
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These "truck rolls" are costly and time consuming. That cost typically limits sample sizes to a few hundred within a local market—too small a sample to accurately determine the audience rating for 60, 70, or more available stations within a listening area. "Bigger samples are better samples, producing more reliable audience estimates," says Thom Mocarsky, Vice President of Communications with Arbitron. "The challenge we had was to develop a system that would eliminate truck rolls. If people could install it themselves, we wouldn’t need the field technicians. We could then reinvest that money in larger sample sizes."
Highly Rated
The solution is Arbitron’s Portable People Meter (PPM) system. In its first full-scale trial, Arbitron outfitted 1500 volunteers, age six and older, in the Philadelphia area. This new, passive audience measurement device automatically reports exposure to the 79 radio, television, and cable outlets participating in the trial. The system consists of four components: encoder, PPM, base station, and hub.
An encoder is installed at the programming or distribution source to insert an inaudible identification code into the audio stream. The PPM, about the size of a pager, is worn by volunteers to detect and record the inaudible codes in the programming that the listener is exposed to. The base station is a "docking station" that each volunteer plugs their PPM into at the end of the day to recharge the batteries and download data to the hub. Finally, the household hub receives the information from the all the base stations within the survey household and transmits them to Arbitron via the telephone during overnight hours.
Echelon technology is used to transfer the data from each of the base
stations to the household
hub. An Echelon PLT-22 transceiver allows the base stations and hub to
communicate over standard household wiring. The PLT-22 reduces noise and
offers unprecedented performance in sending and receiving data over power
lines. Echelon’s PLT-22 technology has enabled Arbitron to design
in-home consoles that are both reliable and extremely consumer-friendly.
Plug and Play SolutionSystem components are delivered to volunteers’ homes via courier. The hub is plugged in to any outlet and a phone cord is connected. "It’s as simple as installing an answering machine," says Ron Kolessar, Vice President of Technology with Arbitron. Similarly, the base stations are plugged in to any outlet. |
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Because the encoded signals are picked up audibly from the TV by the PPMs, there is no need to hardwire a device into the TV set. And, because Echelon enables seamless communications between the base stations and hub, there's no need for cabling-a serious limitation of earlier systems. "It's truly plug and play," says Mocarsky. "There's no need to send out a technician. With the money saved, our goal is to increase local sample sizes from in the hundreds to in the thousands, greatly improving the data we can provide to broadcasters."
Key Benefits
• Faster deployment
• Eliminates the cost of truck rolls
• Enables true plug-and-play capability