The only folks who hate radio measurement more than you are your advertisers, according to this study by the Advertising Research Foundation.
Interestingly, they seem to hate all media measurement for various reasons leading to the sense that they can never be satisfied unless the ratings indicate they deserve zillions of impressions for nothing, but be that as it may….
Meanwhile they reserve special disdain for radio:
Radio’s current research standard, paper diaries, were described as “relics of the past,” and respondents encouraged the industry to move forward on the deployment of the portable people meter system being developed by Arbitron, and to come up with more refined means of measuring multicultural audiences.
Whether or not there are problems with PPM, whether or not your ratings are higher or lower, whether or not “granular” measurement is a good or bad thing (it’s bad, by the way), whether or not the cost is justified by allegedly increased industry revenue, a diary-less future is inevitable.
As an industry we should be trying to make PPM work better and get it in place faster, not debating its wisdom. It ain’t perfect, but diaries are less perfect.