Riki Ellison a 10-year veteran of the NFL and an alumnus of the University of Southern California announced today that this year’s Youth Impact Program (YIP), supported by the National Youth Football, Fund has opened last week in two major U.S. cites. The program has expanded to include two major NCAA Universities as well as the New Orleans Saints football team. Tulane University and the University of Southern California are hosts to the Youth Impact Program this year that began earlier this week on both campuses.

Ellison explained that more than 300 inner-city at-risk youth boys from ages 9-12 from local urban communities surrounding the universities have been selected to participate in the daily, four week program.

The Youth Impact Program has brought local elementary teachers from these communities to participate as mentors and teachers, coupled with active students from the universities during this time frame to extend it to a year round program. The boys are brought to the campuses, placed in academic time blocks focusing on language skills, mathematics, as well as life skills. The life skills curriculum focuses on conflict resolution, anger management, health and leadership.

The boys are served full nutritionally balanced meals daily and placed in groups of under 20, where the teacher/mentor ratio is 1 to 5. These same mentors and teachers are with the same group throughout the program. This allows a positive relationship to develop with a mentor figure that will follow the young boys throughout their development.

The Youth Impact Program continues to bring the boys, mentors/teachers together throughout the year to nurture and strengthen their relationship. One of the top attractions of this program is the allure of football. The NFL Youth Football Fund is providing all of the necessary equipment needed for the football aspect of the program. The young men play every day on the university campus coached by their same teachers and mentors. Some of the mentors are student athletes on NCAA athletic scholarships and others are from the same communities that the program participants are from.

The Youth Impact Program does not cost the families of the participants; The Youth Impact Program funds the program in its entirety. Support for the Youth Impact Program is provided by the NFL Youth Football Fund. The NFL Youth Football Fund was established in 1998 by the NFL and the NFL Players Association. It seeks to use football as a catalyst to promote positive youth development, support youth and high school football needs nationwide, and also ensure the health of grassroots football in future generations.

Congresswoman Diane Watson who represents the City of Los Angeles stated “I am proud of USC, the NFL, the NFL Players Association and Riki Ellison for their outreach into our community. I plan to share this model with other inner city communities that have a university and local school systems to partner with the Youth Impact Program by telling my colleagues in Congress about the program.”

Rita Benson LeBlanc the owner of the New Orleans Saints said “This is a fantastic program that will give our youth additional opportunities to develop skills to help them to be successful not only in athletics, but in life, the Saints are excited and proud to do our part.”

To read more about the program please visit www.youthimpactprogram.org

Source: Youth Impact Program

Services in New York Giants’ broadcasts on WFAN-AM for the 2007 season showed Men 25-54 Average Daily Cumes higher than top NY morning drive station

Arbitron Inc. (NYSE:ARB) today announced that the New York Giants have signed a contract for Portable People Meter(TM) (PPM) custom radio ratings services in New York.

“The ability to look at each game and see how many people are really listening is groundbreaking for us,” said Mike Stevens, Chief Marketing Officer, New York Giants. “PPM data will provide us with game-by-game insights that we were never able to see before. We know that Giants fans are passionate about their team and will tune in so they never miss a game. We can now deliver valuable insight about our audience base and demonstrate to advertisers that sports radio is a unique format for reaching one of their most valued demographics.”

Average Game Day Exceeds Top Morning Drive Show for Men 25-54

The average Giants game in the 2007 season on WFAN-AM reached 194,600 Men 25-54 (Average Daily Cume), according to New York PPM Pre-currency data. On average, these broadcasts reached more men than the number 1 show in morning drive, the premier advertising daypart in the December PPM data for New York.

PPM New York Metro, Men 25-54, Average Daily Cume

2007 Giants Game Average (WFAN-AM, October 2007 - Holiday 2007) 194,600

Morning Drive (#1 Station, December 2007) 188,000

During the 2007 NFL regular season the PPM began measuring radio audiences in New York City. Between September 23, 2007 and January 8th, 2008 the New York Giants radio broadcast on WFAN-AM scored the highest hourly Men 25-54 AQH rating with a 3.2 during the 4th quarter of the December 9th Philadelphia Eagles game.

“There is a need for special consideration when planning to buy and sell for sports broadcasting,” said Mason Meyer, Manager, Custom Services, Arbitron Inc. “We released audience estimates for the post-game radio audience after the Super Bowl with dramatic increases to highly targeted demographics. Additional audience estimates for season broadcasts show that sports radio delivers high-impact return on investment to advertisers. The granularity of PPM data will help sales managers demonstrate their value to their advertisers as they have never been able to before.”

PPM Custom Ratings Agreement

Using the existing PPM panel installed in New York for syndicated radio ratings, the contract calls for Arbitron to generate custom reports of pre-, post-, in-game and total broadcast listening estimates for the Giants 2008 football seasons. The reports include exclusive game broadcast average- quarter-hour and cumulative (Cume) audience estimates to Giants broadcasts on WFAN-AM. New York Football Giants own and control the inventory for pre-, in- and post-game programming.

The New York Giants will broadcast all regular season games during the 2008 football season on WFAN-AM, Sports Radio 66. In addition, WFAN-AM will air pre-season games and all Giants post-season games for which the Giants might qualify.

Source: Arbitron Inc.

Web site: http://www.arbitron.com/