Hadn't even thought about this one until now.

In the past, during major storms, snow and ice events, natural disasters... generally the leading news/talk/information stations received well-deserved spikes in the ratings reflecting their services to the community during trying times.

In Houston, the first PPM town, it will be interesting to see who continued to carry and download data each evening during the storm, how a loss of electricity (predicted) in widespread areas will affect people's ability to download the data to Arbitron, and whether those stations traditionally known for service&info (like KEX/K103 here) will see the ratings reflect the greatly increased listening those stations will receive.

If the meters are unable to record and report such specialized listenening, or if auxiliary and backup transmitters are not equiped with accurate encoding devices, then the PPM will shortchange those stations we rely on most in emergencies.
You can listen to a station on a battery radio, but you can't report that listening without electricity and a working phone line in your home.

I wonder....does the reporting thing-a-ma-jigger have a buffer in which it could store listening until it can talk to mama for download? two, three days? More?

With your utilities infrastructure out of commission, all bets are off that people will be even thinking about reporting...don't see how the system would work except if it was satellite related...or they remember what station(s) after storm.

The PPM has a one week buffer for just such reasons. As long its battery is able to be recharged of course...

Anyone who's near a computer this weekend and would like to hear some first-rate coverage, go to KTRH.com and listen live. Their morning team of Lana Hughes and JP Pritchard pulls marathon duty during hurricanes, and they're amazing.

Lana's smooth as glass and JP is a teddy bear who's capable of being a little gruff and cranky. I worked with these guys in the mid 80's.

I have no idea what the PPM effect will be, but power is going to be out all over that city, and KTRH will be the main source of info for Houston. They're in good hands with that team.

Here's a quick question for Portland area DXers amongst us: If you can successfully null out KXL, what stations come in at night on 740? I note that both KTRH and KCBS are throwing nulls in this direction.

My log shows only KCBS... will try for KTRH tonight. I will run the Navtex decoder tonight as well, often I see navigation messages from station "G" (New Orleans).

I'll be very impressed if you pick it up. Nulling out KXL here makes room for KCBS on 740, but KTRH sends its 50 to the east and south of Houston. When I was there, we threw a signal that burned up the Gulf Coast from New Orleans to Tegucigalpa, but you couldn't get us in Dallas, Waco, or anywhere north. I seem to remember protecting...KRMG in Tulsa?

I am listening to 740 now using a loop antenna, with the nulls directed east-west. I am hearing KCBS with one or two co-channel stations. KCBS is considerably stronger than the other stations, so I haven't been able to identify them. One was playing music and the other is running some kind of spoken word programming.