Although he did not want to be part of an interview with Radio Ink, Edison Research Vice President, Strategy and Marketing Tom webster did post a blog yesterday defending Edison's Pandora numbers and criticizing press coverage of the story and Cumulus COO John Dickey. Webster called coverage of the issue in one of the radio trades "grossly inaccurate." All of this followed an Arbitron letter to stations warning them to be careful about what they see and use in terms of online ratings. From the comments after our story yesterday, many of you believe Arbitron is just trying to ease its way into the online ratings game and get more money from stations.
Read the comments from Radio Ink's coverage of the Arbitron controversy HERE
Here is more from Webster's blog about the issue:
"Amongst the article?s many sins was this line: ?The Edison reports converted Pandora server-side log file listening data into local audience reports using AQH metrics that ranked Pandora alongside local radio stations in Arbitron market reports. [Cumulus COO John] Dickey says he?d like to see Arbitron to ask Pandora to reveal details of how it is calculating its audience estimates.?
"No attempt was made to contact Edison about the ?facts? in this article, which are of course patently untrue. Let us be clear: Edison has never reported anything other than the AQH figures for Pandora ? full stop. We defy any interested party to come up with a ?ranker? from Edison that compares Pandora ?alongside? any terrestrial radio station. Not only have we never produced such a report, we have never allowed a third party to produce such a report. A report comparing Pandora?s AQH measures with those of Arbitron subscribers would, amongst other things, violate Arbitron copyrights. We do not have the legal right, nor the desire, to produce such comparisons."
"Also, Mr. Dickey need not pressure Arbitron to ask Pandora how these audience measures are calculated. Should he, or any other radio executive, care to find out, they need merely ask Pandora themselves, and they?ll be happy to provide the complete methodology for these figures, which are not, as Mr. Dickey intimates, ?estimates;? rather, they are the actual listening data from the population of Pandora listeners."
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