COLUMBIA, Md., Oct. 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Arbitron Inc. announced today that William J. McKenna has been named to the newly created position of senior vice president, New Media Ventures, effective immediately. He will report to Tim Smith, executive vice president, Business Development & Strategy. Mr. McKenna will be based at the company's Columbia, MD headquarters.
In his new role, Mr. McKenna will be responsible for identifying, evaluating and executing new business opportunities with a focus on new customers and market segments for the Arbitron Portable People Meter technology. He will be a key contributor to Arbitron's long-range strategic plan and will support the company's international initiatives. Mr. McKenna will also serve as the corporate voice at domestic and international industry forums regarding audience measurement for new media and emerging technologies.
"Bill's decades of experience as an innovator in media research make him a perfect choice to develop new markets and platforms for our Portable People Meter technology," said William Kerr, president and chief executive officer. "As current media continue to expand to new platforms and as new media emerge, Bill will work to establish Arbitron as an innovative and leading provider of media and market intelligence."
Mr. McKenna's appointment marks his second tour at Arbitron. In the late 1980s, he was a co-creator of Arbitron's ScanAmerica service, the first syndicated television ratings service to combine advanced people meters with an in-home UPC scanner. An inventor with several US patents to his credit, he coined the term "Buyergraphics" to describe ScanAmerica's unique audience metric, which integrated conventional demographic ratings with measures of packaged goods purchases by the viewing household.
Most recently, McKenna was chief executive officer and president at Integrated Media Measurement, Inc. (IMMI), an innovator in cellular phone-based media measurement technologies. In June 2010, Arbitron acquired the technology portfolio, patents, and trade name of IMMI.
Mr. McKenna also served as President and CEO of KMR North America, an operating unit of the KMR Group and WPP's Kantar Group. KMR North America's business practice includes KMR Software, MARs, MARs Medical, IntelliQuest, Mediafax and advisor to companies in which WPP had strategic media measurement investments.
In 1988, he founded Mediafax, a leading marketing and media research company in the Caribbean Region and sold to IBOPE Media. Additionally, he was a partner at Booz Allen and has directly supervised media research companies that collectively received MRC accreditation for three different types of media research services.
In addition to his professional achievements, Mr. McKenna, who received his MBA from Northwestern University, is a former naval aviator and Vietnam veteran, receiving the rank of Captain after 24 years of active duty and reserve military service. Married with seven children, he is a director on the board for two non-profit organizations, the Urological Research Foundation and Puerto Rico's Robinson School.
About Arbitron
Arbitron Inc. 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. 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(TM) and PPM 360(TM), new technologies for media and marketing research.
Portable People Meter(TM), PPM(TM) and PPM 360(TM) are marks of Arbitron Inc.
Arbitron Inc.
CONTACT: Kim Myers, Arbitron Inc., +1-410-312-8500,
kim.myers@arbitron.com
Web Site: http://www.arbitron.com/
