Nielsen Will Not Enter Joint Venture with Arbitron to Commercially Deploy PPM for Media Ratings
Haarlem, the Netherlands – VNU N.V. (ASE: VNU), a leading global information and media company, announced today that Nielsen Media Research, its U.S. media ratings unit, will pursue multiple options to measure television and, as a consequence, will decline to enter into a joint venture with Arbitron Inc. to commercially deploy its Portable People Meter (PPM) as the primary measurement tool for media ratings.

This decision will have no impact on Nielsen’s plan to proceed with Arbitron for Project Apollo, the market research joint venture among VNU’s Nielsen Media Research and ACNielsen units and Arbitron in which the three businesses will collaborate on a national marketing research service which would collect multi-media and purchase information from a common sample of consumers.

Nielsen, in a separate press release today, said it will communicate within 90 days a detailed plan for expanding electronic measurement across all television platforms.

Taking advantage of recent advances in engineering, software and metering technology, Nielsen will pursue a portfolio strategy that will meet the diverse needs and financial abilities of the many television markets it serves.

Nielsen said that the quality threshold required for market research is very different from the thresholds demanded of a television "currency" service, and that it believes the PPM offers potential for market research applications.