The announcement by Arbitron that it will begin providing audience figures for podcasts is huge for media buyers unsure as to whether to begin advertising in podcasts. By providing audience figures through identifying numbers in the MP3 file, Arbitron has now given those buyers something to measure their return on investment with. Before this it seemed to me audience figures were available only by measuring bandwidth of downloads and visitor tracking to the blog or site hosting the podcast and then doing some heavy guessing. Arbitron is using it's Portable People Meter technology to collect the numbers. Arbitron audits podcasts
The announcement by Arbitron that it will begin providing audience figures for podcasts is huge for media buyers unsure as to whether to begin advertising in podcasts. By providing audience figures through identifying numbers in the MP3 file, Arbitron has now given those buyers something to measure their return on investment with. Before this it seemed to me audience figures were available only by measuring bandwidth of downloads and visitor tracking to the blog or site hosting the podcast and then doing some heavy guessing. Arbitron is using it's Portable People Meter technology to collect the numbers. 
