Diary Crediting During Crisis Situations

During crisis situations, special programming and/or commercial-free programming takes place. Any references to the crisis in the diaries will be credited via Arbitron’s Programming Diary Credit Policy.

Programming Diary Credit Policy and Procedures

Effective with the Winter 2003 survey, Arbitron implemented a new programming diary credit policy, which uses the diarykeepers as the source for identifying and crediting stations to which program/personality entries are referring. Submitting programming logs by the stations is no longer necessary. The edit procedures, in general, follow:

• When diarykeepers in a particular market have submitted combination entries (e.g., “Catfish & Allen 102.9”) and all such entries identify only one station, credit will be assigned to that station.
• If there are combination entries from diarykeepers that are not consistent (e.g., one diarykeeper has written “Focus on the Family 91.9” and another has written “Focus on the Family 105.1”), Arbitron will do research to determine where to properly assign the credit, including calling the stations.
• If the verification process shows that multiple stations broadcast the program, then credit will be assigned according to our current One Percent (1%) In-Tab Criterion, with ascription when necessary.
• For those few lone program or personality entries where no station call letters or Station Names are also included, Arbitron will review the entire diary, including the comments section, and research Web sites and previous survey diarykeeper entries, if necessary. If those steps don’t resolve the issue, then Arbitron will call the most likely stations.

Here are some key points to remember about diary crediting at Arbitron during time of war or crisis:

• Only 1.6 percent of all the Fall 2002 quarter-hours were credited from program/personality entries combined with another station descriptor that clearly identified the station to which the diarykeeper was listening.
• Only 0.5 percent of all the Fall 2002 quarter-hours were credited from lone program/personality entries, where there was no clear station descriptor recorded in the entry. But, of these lone entries, there were other combo entries (for the vast majority) in the market clearly identifying the station broadcasting the program/personality.
• “War News,” “Terrorist Attack,” “Iraqi War” phrases combined with a clear station descriptor (for example, &#v;WTOP 1500 Iraq News” or “107.3 War News”) will be credited to the station clearly described in the entry.
• Lone “War News,” “Emergency Broadcast” or “Terrorist Attack” entries that are recorded alone and without a clear station descriptor will generally be credited as Unidentified Listening.
• Specific wartime or homeland crisis program titles (for example, “Wartime with Cokie Roberts on 1500”) will be credited via the procedures explained above, including contacting the station to verify the broadcast.

We recognize that programming credit during this crisis period may be a concern for program directors at all stations. To find out more on programming policies and procedures along with top-level market information, call Diary Analysis and Communications at (410) 312-8756. Once the quarterly estimates have been published, Arbitron subscribers will have access to detailed credit information.

¹  Fall 2002 census of diary entries.