Arbitron has announced its financial results for the second quarter, which ended June 30. Revenue was up 9.1 percent to $104.4 million, from $95.7 million in Q2 a year ago. Factors contributing to the revenue increase include annual escalators in the Company's multi-year radio ratings contracts, including price increases related to the PPM service as well as growth in revenues from Arbitron's cross-platform and mobile services. In addition, Q2 revenue benefited from the timing of certain items associated with survey data from prior periods.

Net income for the second quarter 2012 increased 31.4 percent to $10 million, compared with $7.6 million a year ago. Earnings before interest, income tax expense, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) for the quarter was $23.6 million, an increase of 19.7 percent compared with EBITDA of $19.7 million for Q2 2011. In Q2, net income increased 16.5 percent to $27.8 million compared with $23.8 million in 2011's second quarter.

Revenue for the first six months of 2012 was $210.8 million, an increase of 7.2 percent compared to revenue of $196.6 million for the same time period in 2011. Costs and expenses for the six months of 2012 increased by 5.3 percent to $169 million from $160.5 million. EBITDA increased 12.4 percent to $60.2 million in the first six months of 2012 from $53.6 million for the same period in 2011.

William T. Kerr, Arbitron President/CEO, said, "Throughout the second quarter, we remained focused on our longstanding priorities: pursuing opportunities for revenue growth while enhancing the value and utility of our core services."

"The Discovery Channel signed on for our new cross-platform service to evaluate how its radio and television tune-in campaign delivered viewers to the 2012 premiere episode of The Deadliest Catch, its popular reality program. Our new promotion evaluation service takes advantage of the radio and television measurement capabilities of our existing PPM measurement panels."

"Arbitron Mobile reached an agreement with iResearch, a leading online measurement company in China, to use our on-device smartphone and tablet meter technology to jointly operate a syndicated mobile media research service in mainland China, the world's largest smartphone market."

"On the digital radio front, we have completed the development of a methodology for retrieving, storing and processing daily raw streaming log file data from broadcasters and content delivery networks, and continued the important dialogue with the radio industry on the appropriate approach and reporting framework for our planned integrated radio ratings service."

"Throughout the quarter, we maintained our efforts to enhance the quality of our radio ratings services. Based on these efforts and on our progress, and as we just announced, the Media Rating Council has accredited the average quarter hour monthly radio ratings data produced by our PPM service in five additional markets, including Los Angeles. In total, the ratings data produced in 14 markets can now display the MRC double checkmark logo."

"Even as we invested in our core services and in growth initiatives, we continued to deliver margin growth and were able to return capital to our shareholders through dividends and stock repurchases."