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Private company

Nielsen Audio

Logo: The Nielsen Company (US), LLC., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

U.S. radio audience measurement since 1949

Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau in Beltsville, Maryland, by Jim Seiler in 1949 and went national by merging with Los Angeles-based Coffin, Cooper, and Clay in the early 1950s. The company's first business was the collection of broadcast television ratings.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1949Founded1

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Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau in Beltsville, Maryland, by Jim Seiler in 1949 and went national by merging with Los Angeles-based Coffin, Cooper, and Clay in the early 1950s. The company's first business was the collection of broadcast television ratings.2

Subsidiaries and ownership

Owners

From Wikidata.1

Former names

  • Arbitron1960 to Sep 30, 20131
  • American Research Bureau1949 to 19601

Timeline

  1. Sep 30, 2013Renamed Name changed to Nielsen Audio1
  2. 1960Renamed Name changed to Arbitron1
  3. 1949Founded Founded in Washington, D.C.1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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