On Oct 1, 6:35 am, wrote:
The reason I ask is because there's a local* Christian station WJTL,
supported purely by donations, that *never* appears in the Arbitron
ratings. I know it's a popular station so I'm surprised that it never
shows up.

Does Arbitron, like Nielsen, only monitor stations that pay for their
services (and thus ignore those that don't)?

* Lancaster PA

Arbitron's survey includes all the stations in a given geographic
area.
But only hose who pay get rated.

Although within the radio community Arbitron will tell subscribers the
break down.

This data was accurate in the 1999-2000 time frame, I knew a grad
student who was
doing her PHD on the inaccuracy inherent in any voluntary survive. She
"proved" that
both Arbitron and Nielsen are nowhere near accurate.

Of course, as Mark Twain said, " there are lies, damn lies then
statistics".

Terry