Columbia, MD - Jan 11, 2010 - The Media Rating Council (MRC) has revised its status of the Arbitron Portable People Meter service in 21 local markets. The MRC has accredited the monthly AQH radio ratings data produced by the PPM service in the Minneapolis-St. Paul market, which joins Houston-Galveston and Riverside-San Bernardino as accredited markets for Arbitron's PPM ratings service.

Additionally, Arbitron has been notified that the MRC will deny accreditation to PPM services in Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, San Diego, Seattle, Tampa-St. Petersburg, and Washington, DC. Further, the MRC closed without action audits for two California markets (San Francisco and San Jose) and these two markets remain unaccredited. Arbitron will collaborate with the MRC to reaudit each of these markets in 2010.

Arbitron has said that it will continue to adhere to the MRC accreditation process, and it looks forward to working with the MRC on that process.