Arbitron Radio Markets in Florida

First before I actually give you the list of markets that Arbitron rates in the state of Florida, I feel a brief but understanding explanation of what Arbitron is (for those who know this just feel free to skip down).

Arbitron is the primary radio research company in the United States that provides ratings services to radio stations across the United States. Arbitron provides ratings to 300 markets in the United States with New York City as its largest market and Casper, Wyoming as its smallest market according to its website at Arbitron.com

Currently their is two different ways that Arbitron collects data to issues the ratings. The first is the diary method which requires people who are filling out the diary for Arbitron to write down what radio station they have listened to and at what time during the day. The second method which is currently being deployed to 50 markets, is the Portable People Meter also known as the PPM. The PPM is an electronic device like a pager and encodes data as to what radio station and time the survery is listening to the radio station. This has been said to give better accuracy to providing ratings, but currently has meet some legal challenges in certain states where the PPM is use including Florida. You can read more about the Florida lawsuit here on Attorney General Bill McCollum's website

Right now Arbitron has deployed the PPM in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood market which is the largest radio market in Florida according to its website. Eventually Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater (July/August 2009), Orlando (July/August 2010), West Palm Beach-Boca Raton (October/November 2010) and Jacksonville (October/November 2010) will join on using the PPM instead of the diary based methods. All other Florida markets are projected to remain on the diary based research for now.

Here is the list of Arbitron markets by largest to smallest (number is the rank out of all Arbitron markets):

12. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood
18. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater
34. Orlando
46. Jacksonville
47. West Palm Beach-Boca Raton
61. Ft. Myers-Naples-Marco Island
73. Sarasota-Bradenton
81. Gainesville-Ocala
86. Daytona Beach
93. Lakeland-Winter Haven
95. Ft. Pierce-Stuart-Vero Beach
97. Melbourne-Titusville-Cocoa
124. Pensacola
162. Tallahassee
227. Ft. Walton Beach
239. Panama City
287. Sebring

Other radio markets in Florida, but not ranked by Arbitron: The Florida Keys and Lake City

Hopefully this explains more of what Arbitron is and what they do for radio ratings. For more information check out Arbitron's website here.