Arbitron Enhances Internet Broadcast Ratings by Distintiguishing Between Commercial and Non-Commercial Stations

AOL Radio@Network and LAUNCH Are Highest Ranking Internet Broadcasters for the Week of July 7

NEW YORK, July 24, 2003 – Arbitron Internet Broadcast Services enhances its Internet ratings by differentiating between commercial and non-commercial starting the week of July 7.

Arbitron will continue to publish two types of rankers on a weekly and monthly basis; ratings for Internet Broadcasts and Sales Networks and ratings for Internet Broadcast stations.

One set of ratings will rank the Top 20 Internet Broadcasters and Sales Networks. The Internet Broadcasters include the sum of all the stations owned by the broadcaster. Sales Networks include the sum total of listening to a group of independently owned stations sold collectively by the sales network. The other set of ratings will rank the Top 50 (individual) Internet Broadcast Stations.

Both rankers also indicate whether a given property is commercial or non-commercial. Arbitron classifies broadcasters or stations as commercial if they sell audio or video commercials to other companies. The commercials may occur prior to or during the programming and are distinct from banner and pop-up ads.

"Our new rankers will help make this rapidly growing medium easier to plan and buy by enabling agencies to distinguish Internet Broadcasters that provide advertising opportunities from those that are non-commercial," said Bill Rose, vice president and general manager, Arbitron Internet Broadcast Services.

For the week of July 7, the top ranked Internet Broadcasters were the Radio@AOL Network with 5,991,891 of Total Time Spent Listening (TTSL) and LAUNCH with 2,499,368 of TTSL, the sum total of hours tuned by listeners to a given station or network. MUSICMATCH was the top ranked non-commercial Internet Broadcaster with 1,589,055 of TTSL and the Adsertion Network was the top ranked Sales Network with 1,138,984 TTSL.

MUSICMATCH Artist Match was the top non-commercial Internet Broadcast Station with 507,716 TTSL for the week. London based Virgin Radio was the top commercial Internet Broadcast station with 323,679 hours of TTSL.

The top Content Delivery Networks (CDN) will also be measured weekly and available on the Arbitron website in the coming weeks. The top Content Delivery Networks for the week of July 7 were Live365 with 2,574,425 TTSL, followed by StreamGuys with 571,097 TTSL.

Demographic Highlights for the Week of July 7 – July 13

• The peak listening days were Tuesday, July 8, Wednesday, July 9 and Thursday, July 10 with 18 percent of the week's online listening each day.
• 76 percent of weekly online listening took place between 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. Pacific time.
• 13 percent of the week's total listening took place during the weekend.
• 85 percent of the measured listeners were between the ages of 18 and 54.
• 70 percent of listeners were men; 30 percent were women.
• In the U.S., 33 percent of listeners resided in the South; 30 percent in the West; 19 percent in the Northeast; and 18 percent in the Midwest.