New Ohio Radio Ratings?

The folks at Arbitron will get some competition for radio ratings starting next year - and it will affect one Ohio market.

The New York Times reports that Nielsen, better known for its TV ratings, will provide radio audience measurement in 50 "small and midsize markets" starting in the third quarter of 2009, in a deal with radio group owner Cumulus, which has been seeking an Arbitron alternative for some time.

The Times also reports that in 17 of those markets, Clear Channel's radio stations will also take part in the new service.

But it took a nudge from Radio-Info.com's news headlines to bring this into focus for us:

The markets aren't being identified yet, but presumably metros like Youngstown are candidates, since both Cumulus and Clear Channel have stations there and are the dominant players.

UPDATE 12:31 PM 11/18/08: AllAccess has posted a list of the markets involved, and only Youngstown is listed in Ohio. Clear Channel and Cumulus also compete in Toledo, and in the much larger Cincinnati market, but the Arbitron-Cumulus deal only covers Youngstown.

This also gives us a chance to bring up a new development: Cincinnati has now surpassed Cleveland in Arbitron's radio market size rankings.

The Queen City is now the 28th ranked radio market in the country in the Fall 2008 rankings, thanks to over 21 thousand new residents. Cleveland slides to 29th, losing nearly the same amount of people as Cincinnati gained. Net gap between the two markets - about 86 hundred people.

The radio market size drop for Cleveland is similar to the drop in ranking for the Cleveland TV market over the past few years. Cleveland is now America's 17th largest TV market, down from the top 10 decades ago.

Remember, on the TV side, Akron and Canton are also included in the Cleveland market, where they are separate markets for radio...