Rush Limbaugh, Arbitron Ratings System, Wall Street Journal

ARE RUSH FANS LYING?

WSJ Ratings Piece Ponders Overstated Rush Audience







With the slanted coverage they've long enjoyed, no wonder liberals are up in arms over the Wall Street Journal's potential loss of editorial independence under Rupert Murdoch.

Yes, in journalism- speak, "independence" means a newsroom's freedom to be eternally liberal. And that's the mindset that most certainly clouded what should have been an uncontroversial piece about a new, high- tech radio ratings system that was profiled in today's paper.

In the story, writer Sarah McBride pondered whether the new Portable People Meter system, already tested in Philly and Houston, might hurt Rush Limbaugh's ratings once rolled out nationwide:

The People Meter, a pager-sized device that automatically registers what radio station survey participants are listening to, is already yielding more specific -- and, in some cases, surprising -- data. The results from the first two markets indicate that people flip among stations more frequently than they say, that men listen to significantly more radio than women and that employed people listen a lot more than people who don't work. While the diary system pointed to some of these findings, it typically missed how broad they are.

In the markets that have switched to the electronic ratings, rock and classic rock rank higher than before, while hip-hop and other urban music generally don't stack up as well. Perhaps most important, radio stations typically pull in a bigger audience than they thought, but that audience spends less time listening to them.

New York will begin using the electronic measurements in October, followed by Los Angeles and Chicago early next year. By the end of 2008, the system is expected to be in use in all of the Top 10 markets.

Arbitron cites several reasons for the differences in the two systems' findings. First, the sample size used for the People Meter dwarfs that used for the diaries. In Philadelphia, about 380 people reported results during any given day under the diary system, compared with a goal of about 1,530 for the People Meter.

The company also says people who record in diaries tend to report their habitual behavior -- listing shows they often listen to, for example -- rather than their actual behavior. Thus, a diary participant who said he or she listened to Rush Limbaugh every day might now be found by the People Meter to change stations more than the diary showed.

The problem with the argument is that it is speculative. Tested in only two cities, the system has so far been buggy and just weeks ago, Arbitron was forced to make an embarrassing data revision.

So why single out Rush? Who says we won't find out that listeners are underreporting conservative news/talk listening? So far, nothing has emerged that indicates Rush or any other host will suffer under the new system.

Think about it this way: the mainstream media would love to believe that Rush's ratings have been fudged for years and see this technology as solving their Limbaugh problem. That means they believe current Arbitron diarykeepers are lying, by substantially overstating the amount of time they actually do listen to his show.

To that, your Radio Equalizer says, bring on Rupert!


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