On Monday, Clear Channel Radio expressed its displeasure with the state of radio measurement and ratings by putting out a request for proposals for a new system to do a better job. The company cites a recent study by Millward Brown that showed a 49% besting of television ad by radio spots for getting consumers to make a purchase. But it's not just TV that Clear Channel thinks radio needs to go up against - print is included too - as they refer back to a survey from 2004 that showed radio ads that replaced print ads grew brand recall by more than 1/3. Additionally, Clear Channel was kind to the radio measurement industry by saying that the methods used - namely, personal diaries - are not so effective after been seen "under increasing skepticism" recently.

And you know what, they're right. It's kind of crazy that there hasn't been a newish method of measuring listenership, although one would presume that services like XM and SIRIUS would have the ability to keep an eye out for what their listeners had on for what amounts of time - but they "own" the right to transmit to those devices. It's not so easy to do so with the regular terrestrial radios. So what's the solution, folks? It's obviously not an easy one, becuase there's no reason that we'd all be sitting here without one for years and years unless it would be a pain to fix it.