Mere days after Meruelo Media stopped subscribing to Nielsen’s PPM ratings service in Los Angeles, the broadcaster and the ratings giant have quickly come to terms on a new agreement. That means listening data for heritage rocker KLOS (95.5), rhythmic CHR “Power 106” KPWR, classic hip-hop KDAY (93.5), and Spanish CHR “Cali 93.9” KLLI are once again included in the summary dataset that fuels the major buying systems used by agencies and advertisers.
Nielsen notified its subscribers in a letter last week that Meruelo Media was no longer licensing the data. After a few days elapsed and the news spread, via a story in Inside Radio about Nielsen losing a long term client in radio’s richest revenue market, an agreement was reached. Apparently both parties arrived at a deal that each could live with.
Meruelo Media, the only certified minority-owned media group in Los Angeles, declined to comment. Nielsen Audio Managing Director Rich Tunkel provided a statement that said: “We value our business with Meruelo Media and are excited that they continue to be a subscriber. Meruelo has a sizable share of listening in the Los Angeles Metro across their cluster of stations and with this renewal, advertisers can continue to account for their contribution to their media plans."
While it’s not unusual for ownership groups in small markets to go without ratings, it is far less common in PPM-measured markets, especially market No. 2. Among Meruelo Media’s L.A. portfolio are high profile outlets like “Power 106,” one of America’s first hip-hop stations, and KLOS, one of the country’s longest running rock stations.