NEW YORK, Jan. 26 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) announced that it reached two separate settlement agreements with Ipsos, S.A., Ipsos America, Inc., and Ipsos UK, Ltd., and with International Demographics, Inc. (d/b/a The Media Audit). Both settlement agreements relating to the patent infringement lawsuit that Arbitron filed against IPSOS and The Media Audit on October 10, 2006 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

Arbitron's patent infringement lawsuit alleged that IPSOS and The Media Audit infringed three U.S. patents relating to the Portable People Meter electronic audience measurement technology developed by Arbitron. (U.S. Patent Nos. 5,787,334; 5,574,962 and 5,483,276.)

On October 23, 2008, Arbitron and The Media Audit entered into a settlement agreement in which The Media Audit acknowledged that the three Arbitron U.S. patents were valid, enforceable, and not otherwise subject to any equitable defenses. The Media Audit further agreed that, until the expiration of all three Arbitron U.S. patents, they would not make, use, sell, offer for sale, test, demonstrate, distribute, or otherwise engage in activities that potentially infringe the three valid and enforceable Arbitron U.S. patents. The settlement agreement by The Media Audit applies to any systems, methods, devices, or the like, including but not limited to the "Smart Cell Phone" developed by IPSOS, and was previously marketed by The Media Audit in the United States.

On January 13, 2009, Arbitron and IPSOS reached a settlement agreement effectively dismissing Arbitron's patent infringement lawsuit without prejudice against IPSOS. As a result, IPSOS agreed to immediately suspend any and all efforts in the United States related to commercialization, testing, and/or marketing a portable electronics measurement system with regard to any and all forms of media until at least January 13, 2012.

About the Portable People Meter

The Arbitron Portable People Meter system uses a passive audience measurement device -- about the size of a small cell phone -- to track consumer exposure to media and entertainment, including broadcast, cable and satellite television; terrestrial, satellite and online radio as well as cinema advertising and many types of place-based electronic media. Carried throughout the day by randomly selected survey participants, the PPMTM device can track when and where they watch television, listen to radio as well as how they interact with other forms of media and entertainment.

The PPM detects inaudible codes embedded in the audio portion of media and entertainment content delivered by broadcasters, content providers and distributors. At the end of the day, the meter is placed in a docking station that extracts the codes and sends them to a central computer. The PPM is equipped with a motion sensor, a patented quality control feature unique to the system, which allows Arbitron to confirm the compliance of the PPM survey participants every day.

PPM ratings are based on audience estimates and represent the opinion of Arbitron. PPM ratings, like all audience estimates however derived, should not be relied on for precise accuracy or precise representativeness of a demographic or radio market.

About Arbitron

Arbitron Inc. (NYSE: ARB) is a media and marketing research firm serving the media -- radio, television, cable, online radio and out-of-home -- as well as advertisers and advertising agencies in the United States. Arbitron's core businesses are measuring network and local market radio audiences across the United States; surveying the retail, media and product patterns of local market consumers; and providing application software used for analyzing media audience and marketing information data. The company has developed the Portable People Meter, a new technology for media and marketing research.

Through its Scarborough Research joint venture with The Nielsen Company, Arbitron provides additional media and marketing research services to the broadcast television, newspaper and online industries.

Arbitron's marketing and business units are supported by a world-renowned research and technology organization located in Columbia, Maryland.

Portable People MeterTM and PPMTM are marks of Arbitron Inc.

Arbitron Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The statements regarding Arbitron Inc. and its subsidiaries in this document that are not historical in nature, particularly those that utilize terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "likely," "expects," "anticipates," "estimates," "believes," or "plans," or comparable terminology, are forward-looking statements based on current expectations about future events, which we have derived from information currently available to us. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that may cause our results to be materially different from results implied in such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, in no particular order, whether we will be able to:


    --  absorb costs related to legal proceedings and governmental entity
        interactions and avoid related fines, limitations, or conditions on our
        business activities;
    --  successfully implement the commercialization of our Portable People
        MeterTM service;
    --  successfully maintain and promote industry usage of our services, a
        critical mass of broadcaster encoding, and the proper understanding of
        our audience measurement services and methodology in light of
        governmental regulation, legislation, litigation, activism or adverse
        public relations efforts;
    --  successfully design, recruit and maintain PPM panels that appropriately
        balance research quality, panel size and operational cost;
    --  compete with companies that may have financial, marketing, sales,
        technical, or other advantages over us;
    --  complete the Media Rating Council ("MRC") audits of our local
        market PPM ratings services in a timely manner and successfully obtain
        and/or maintain MRC accreditation for our audience measurement business;
    --  renew contracts with key customers ;
    --  successfully execute our business strategies, including entering into
        potential acquisition, joint-venture or other material third-party
        agreements;
    --  effectively manage the impact, if any, of any further ownership shifts
        in the radio and advertising agency industries;
    --  respond to rapidly changing technological needs of our customer base,
        including creating new proprietary software systems and new customer
        products and services that meet these needs in a timely manner;
    --  successfully manage the impact on our business of any economic downturn,
        generally, and in the advertising market, in particular;
    --  successfully manage the impact on costs of data collection due to lower
        respondent cooperation in surveys, privacy concerns, consumer trends,
        technology changes and/or government regulations; and
    --  successfully develop and implement technology solutions to measure new
        forms of audio content and delivery, multimedia and advertising in an
        increasingly competitive environment.

There are a number of additional important factors that could cause actual events or our actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, the risk factors set forth in the caption "ITEM 1A. -- RISK FACTORS" in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2007, our Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2008, and elsewhere, and any subsequent periodic or current reports filed by us with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

In addition, any forward-looking statements contained in this document represent our estimates only as of the date hereof, and should not be relied upon as representing our estimates as of any subsequent date. While we may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point in the future, we specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, even if our estimates change.

SOURCE Arbitron Inc.