BBM Canada, also known as BBM, is an audience measurement

Audience measurement

Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites...

 organization for Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 television and radio broadcasting.

BBM was established on May 11, 1944 as a division of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters

Canadian Association of Broadcasters

The Canadian Association of Broadcasters was the national voice of Canada's private broadcasters, representing the vast majority of Canadian programming services, including private radio and television stations, specialty, pay and pay-per-view services....

. The organization was originally known as the "Bureau of Broadcast Measurement", and the name was changed to BBM Canada in 2001. In 1964, it became the first ratings service in the world to introduce computerized sample selection

Sampling (statistics)

In statistics and survey methodology, sampling is concerned with the selection of a subset of individuals from within a population to estimate characteristics of the whole population....

.

In 2008 and 2009, BBM Canada was named one of Greater Toronto's Top Employers

Greater Toronto's Top Employers

Greater Toronto's Top Employers is an annual competition that recognizes the best places to work in the Greater Toronto Area...

 by Mediacorp Canada Inc., which was announced by the Toronto Star

Toronto Star

The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...

 newspaper.

Radio

In radio, BBM is the main provider of ratings services. The company has traditionally used a diary

Diary

A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...

-based system for tracking radio audience habits and this system is still used in most markets. In Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

, Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, Edmonton

Edmonton

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...

 and Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

 ratings are now measured using the Portable People Meter

Portable People Meter

The Portable People Meter is a system developed by Arbitron to measure how many people are listening to individual radio stations and television stations, including cable TV. The PPM is worn like a pager, and detects hidden audio tones within a station or network's audio stream, logging each...

 (PPM) technology.

Television

In television, BBM is partnered with the American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 company Nielsen

Nielsen Media Research

Nielsen Media Research is an American firm that measures media audiences, including television, radio, theatre films and newspapers...

 in a joint venture called BBM Electronic Inc., which measures the Toronto, Vancouver and Calgary markets, the Ontario region and national ratings figures via Portable People Meters. BBM Canada is the senior partner in the joint venture, and also continues to independently monitor some markets — primarily the francophone

Francophone

The adjective francophone means French-speaking, typically as primary language, whether referring to individuals, groups, or places. Often, the word is used as a noun to describe a natively French-speaking person....

television market in Quebec, and some smaller media markets — which are not served by the joint operation, through diaries.

The companies continued to compete with each other as providers of television ratings service until the joint venture was launched in 2006.