July 09, 2009

By By Katy Bachman, Mediaweek

The Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, a strong critic of Arbitron's portable people meter ratings service, announced Tuesday (July 7) it has joined the Media Rating Council, giving the organization a voice in the accreditation of the service.

While AHAA's MRC membership is good for the MRC, it may not be such good news for Arbitron, which has struggled to achieve MRC accreditation for its PPM ratings service. So far, the MRC has accredited only two of the 15 PPM markets, in Houston and Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif.

"AHAA has met with Arbitron regarding the PPM sample quality and size of Hispanic listeners and remains earnest in its attempts to collaboratively resolve issues with PPM. The seat on the MRC board allows AHAA to formally assess and render its opinion on the accuracy of PPM sampling and methodology as well as other ratings services," the organization said in a prepared statement.

AHAA and other Hispanic broadcasters have expressed concerns that the PPM samples do not accurately represent Hispanic audiences. Univision Communications has not subscribed to the PPM service and is not encoding its signals in Miami, Phoenix and San Diego, three markets scheduled to receive the first PPM ratings July 16.

"AHAA has been actively involved in monitoring and influencing media ratings systems since Nielsen's move to electronic measurement," said Gisela Girard, AHAA chair and president and COO of Creative Civilization. "As an industry, we are in favor of technological advancements and more precise measurement of media performance; however, our concern remains focused on accurate representation of the Latino consumer."

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