Radio’s institutions are all reacting differently to the triple-whammy of Time, Technology and Tight money. The responses that these institutions choose will obviously weigh heavily on the reactions that come from Radio. One institution that I wrote about a few weeks ago, NAB, has chosen to seek new leadership. In the meantime another, Radio and Records, decided to go ahead and jump off the Tallahatchie Bridge. Here’s another, very different, example:

As one who literally grew up in Radio, I remember when Arbitron was “The American Research Bureau, a division of Control Data.” For sometime after that, their studies were called the ARBs, because ARB was what they called the company. However, no matter when you began doing business with them, what their clients thought of Arbitron really didn’t change over the years. Difficult, unyielding, pompous, authoritarian, stingy, bullying, stiff-necked; all of these were used to describe the folks from Maryland. If you stood around a bar at an NAB or RAB conference and overheard the term, “arrogant bastards,” the odds were at least even that the conversation involved Arbitron.

Customer relations with Arbitron often felt as if it was based on the famous Seinfeld episode about the Soup Nazi. Do it EXACTLY their way or, “No soup for you!” At anything less than the very top, it often didn’t seem to matter who you were dealing with, either. Somewhere in the great Arbitron training and indoctrination process there must be a secret blood-oath ceremony where one swears to always look for the hardest way, the more difficult course, the path of greatest resistance.

Are there exceptions to this? Oh, of course there are. Arbitron has (and has always had) many great employees. And most of them are fully aware that they work (or worked) for a company whose arrogance fit it like a patent-leather cat woman suit.

So it comes as more than a bit of surprise to find that things appear to actually be changing at Arbitron, and that those changes seem to be very much for the better. New CEO Michael Skarzynski is employing the ancient management dictum that, “a new broom sweeps clean” as he blows out position after position, and replaces the departed with dreaded “outsiders.” Thank the Good Lord. There is at least a chance that these new people won’t have taken the blood oath (at least not yet). In spite of the loss of a number of good souls who would be a credit to any company, no organization anywhere near as important to Radio needs a thorough cultural housecleaning as badly as Arbitron.

After the most recent round of upgrading, there was some discussion that perhaps Arbitron was in danger of losing its “institutional memory.” I certainly hope so! The sooner that Arbitron forgets that they have the only answer, or that they alone even know what the question is, the sooner Radio has a chance to be well-served by this important business.

Radio done right has always been a test of the mixture of Art and Science. Because (with a few notable exceptions) Arbitron has almost always aced the science part of the exam, they must have missed or just ignored the fact that, year in and year out, Arbitron flat-out flunked the Art portion, the part about transparent business practices and top-notch customer service. Perhaps Michael Skarzynski understands that the mixture of Art and Science isn’t an either/or proposition; his predecessors seldom did. Arbitron was tone deaf to Radio’s objections because they either didn’t know how to listen or just didn’t care. Let’s hope that what we are seeing is a sign of real change.

There will always be challenges and conflicts with a supplier as important to Radio as Arbitron. Today, it is the continuing PPM roll-out and how they handle the very real uproar over Hispanic PPM. Tomorrow, it will certainly include how well Arbitron succeeds in directly helping Radio develop new business. But how refreshing the idea that our industry, our ownership and interest groups and our individual stations can have conversations WITH Arbitron rather than have Arbitron simply deliver its pronouncements from on high.

Scrub behind every counter in your kitchen, Mr. Skarzynski; we'd very much like to buy your excellent soup, but we’re tired of the heaping portions of bad attitude that so often came as an unwanted side dish with every order. Scrape in every corner, and build us a new business that can deliver what we need, what we want, when and how we want it. We'd love to be your satisfied customers.