April 19, 2012
Arbitron reports that its revenue rose 5.5 percent in the first quarter of the year, to $106.4 million, up from $100.9 million in Q1 of 2011. The gain was mostly due to annual rate increases, including the phasing in of contracted price increases for the PPM. Arbitron's costs and expenses were up 4.7 percent in the quarter, to $75.2 million from $71.8 million, with about $2.8 million of that due to costs associated with Arbitron Mobile, acquired by Arbitron in July of 2011; Arbitron Mobile just went live in the U.S. with the Arbitron Mobile Trends Panel smartphone and tablet measurement service.
Operating income was up 7.4 percent in the quarter, to $31.2 million from $29.1 million, and EBIT was up 8.7 percent, to $28.9 million from $26.6 million. Arbitron's net income in Q1 was $17.8 million (64 cents per diluted share), compared to $16.2 million (59 cents) in Q1 a year ago.
Arbitron President/CEO Bill Kerr said, "Our results and our activities in the first quarter are well aligned with our long-standing priorities for enhancing our core services and for generating revenue growth." He noted that Arbitron's recently unveiled marketing mix modeling service should be up and running "and ready to improve radio's visibility among the top agency media planners by the middle of the summer."
Kerr added, "Digital radio remains a key priority as we continue our work to follow radio onto its new digital platforms in order to quantify this growing audience segment thereby enabling customers to monetize it.?
(4/20/2012 8:10:41 AM)
We as an industry should be up in arms over this. Here is a service provider to our industry that can't get accreditation for their methodology, under samples in all markets, and is on track to make a $100MM from us... This isn't right....
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