Under pressure from radio broadcasters, Arbitron announced it would delay reporting listening to satellite radio and Internet radio in its syndicated surveys to Summer 2006, at the earliest. Apparently the concern was that the new diary instructions would be actually prompting participants to listen to Internet and/or satellite radio in addition to terrestrial radio.

Arbitron originally planned to report satellite radio listening of individual channels beginning with the Fall 2005 survey.

In a related note, Frank Bell, VP Programming at Keymarket thinks the Arbitron ratings will “to put into perspective the far-reaching claims of the XM and Sirius PR flacks who have pretty much convinced the mainstream press that terrestrial broadcasting is over the hill.”

Uh huh. Wishful thinking there Frank.