His departure was announced in a one-line statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, which said: “Effective October 6, 2009, Taher G. Behbehani is no longer employed at Arbitron.”

No reason was given for his departure and neither Behbehani nor Arbitron could be reached for comment.

However, the announcement follows the creation of a new cross-platform media measurement group within the company headed by former sales VP Pierre Bouvard, now executive vice president of cross-platform services.

Bouvard’s team is tasked with developing services that use Arbitron’s portable people meter (PPM) technology to measure how media is consumed across TV, radio, internet, mobile and place-based media – responsibilities that appear to overlap with those of Behbehani, who was hired by the company to extend PPM “to multimedia markets through business partnerships, acquisitions, joint ventures, licensing arrangements and strategic investments”.

Behbehani joined the firm in April from Time Warner Cable where he was vice president for business affairs responsible for establishing partnerships with web search and display advertising companies. It is not known whether he has another job to go to.