Arbitron’s Portable People Meters Show Large Gap Between Actual and Self-Reported Listening Habits
12.17.2009
Turns out he actually listens to soft rock.
Now that radio measurement firm Arbitron has replaced its self-reported paper diaries with Portable People Meters that actually track listening behavior (as Nielsen did for TV ratings in 1987), it’s finding that we listen to the embarrassing stuff more often than we’d like to admit. Ratings for classical stations are nearly 11% lower than previously reported, and men make up 16% more of the soft-rock audience than they did when they had to acknowledge it in writing. More at NY Times.
Eleven percent here, 16% there — it adds up to a big gap between what we do and what we tell pollster we do.
