Arbitron Plans Expanded Ratings Service, Viewer Surveys

Arbitron Ratings Co., best known for its local broadcast audience ratings, said Tuesday that it plans to offer a national television ratings service that will also measure the buying habits of the survey families.

The announcement comes as budget-conscious advertisers are increasingly looking at alternatives such as promotions and special event sponsorships to find more effective ways to boost sales.

The national television ratings services already being offered by A. C. Nielsen Co. and AGB Television Research measure who watches specific shows but not what those viewers end up buying.

A. J. Aurichio, president of Arbitron, a unit of Control Data Corp., said his service would help national advertisers and ad agencies relate what they are spending on television commercials to sales results.

He said the service should also give the networks information that they can use to convince advertisers of the selling potential of their medium.

Arbitron calls its service ScanAmerica and has been operating it in the Denver area since April, 1987, following about 18 months of testing.

At a news conference, Aurichio said Arbitron plans to begin operating the ScanAmerica National Service in the fall of 1989 using a sample of 1,000 households in five major markets.

He said the size of the sample would be increased by the fall of 1990 to 2,600 households that would be representative of the national population. The sample would be increased gradually to 5,000 households by the end of 1992.

Aurichio said Arbitron expected to lose $125 million introducing the system, which would not be not expected to break even until 1995. But he said that by the year 2000, the system should generate about $170 million a year in revenue.

Arbitron’s announcement comes as AGB, another newcomer to the national ratings business, is putting on a push to get the three major networks to subscribe to its ratings service.

AGB reportedly has told the three major networks that it will cease operations unless they buy its service this season. AGB took on Nielsen head-to-head this past season for the first time, but only CBS signed up.

Nielsen, a unit of Dun & Bradstreet Corp., has been the leader in compiling national audience ratings for 30 years. Arbitron has never done national ratings but has compiled local market ratings for nearly 40 years.

Aurichio said Arbitron expects to get as much as 40% of its revenue from advertisers, 35% from the networks and other television outlets and 25% from ad agencies.

The rates for the networks and ad agencies will be comparable to those being charged by Nielsen, he said.

Advertisers will be charged about $75,000 for each product category, he said. In return, they will get ratings and sales results data as well as information on what brands people bought after seeing their commercial or an ad from a competitor.

Arbitron, Nielsen and AGB each collect viewing information with what are known as “people meters.” Viewers register when they are watching television by punching buttons on a device that resembles a remote control handset. The meter records who is watching specific shows.

Arbitron’s ScanAmerica system also includes a product scanner that families are asked to use to record what they have purchased. They pass the wand over the Universal Product Code symbol on each package, and that information is collected electronically overnight along with the viewing data by Arbitron’s computers.