In the latest round of fighting over the commercialization of Arbitron's PPM ratings, the PPM Coalition has released a statement calling this week's PPM data "inaccurate." Specifically, the Coalition doubted the data released on Tuesday that highlighted the success of Urban and Spanish-language stations in the new PPM markets.

In their statement, the Coalition writes, "As expected given the sample deficiencies, Arbitron's PPM results for September 2008 reflect inaccurate listenership data. Arbitron suggests via examples that Spanish-language and Urban stations do well in the new PPM markets and chose to overlook the overall impact on these stations. Looking at total week average quarter-hour ratings shows an overall decline for persons 12+ in NY of 34 percent: Spanish-language radio declined over 50 percent, Urban radio declined almost 40 percent, while top 5 non-ethnic FM stations down 10 percent."

The Coalition continues, stating that "In Chicago, we saw an overall decline of over 30 percent but if you take a closer look, Spanish-language radio is down over 40 percent and Urban down almost 60 percent, while top 5-non-ethnic stations had a difference of less than 1 percent." 

The statement goes on to call Arbitron "an unregulated monopoly" with "long-standing history of highlighting their most favorable results because the company has a tendency of giving data in 'shares' or 'cume,' rather than in ratings." They add that these numbers do not accurately reflect AQH, "which is what advertisers and stations depend on. Inaccurate ratings data produced by PPM will disenfranchise minority communities and have a devastating impact on small businesses. Inaccurate data will severely harm media diversity, and ultimately will limit the variety of voices and viewpoints on our radio airwaves. This is why the Attorney General's Office has cautioned advertisers and broadcasters against using these prematurely released ratings."