Radio stations have more listeners than they are credited for under the current radio audience measurement system, according to the results of research released by Kelvin MacKenzie’s Wireless Group.
MacKenzie, who has been an outspoken critic of RAJAR’s diary system of audience measurement (see
Commenting on the results of the research, he said: “For the first time, many radio stations can prove that their audiences are much larger than RAJAR gives them credit for. This means that the industry is transformed from a secondary frequency medium, used by advertisers almost as a bolt-on or fill-in for campaigns.
He added: “It is now a primary reach medium that can be part of an integrated press, TV and radio strategy. The prospect of having the same respondent’s radio and TV usage measured at the same time has obvious advantages for campaign planners – and that is possible with this technology.”
The tests, which were monitored and endorsed by Carat Insight, show that weekly reach went up for 29 of the 34 stations monitored in two test areas in the North and the South of the country. Speech stations were found to attract larger audiences than estimated under the current RAJAR system and people were found to listen to more radio stations than they mark down in a diary.
According to the Wireless Group, 215 radio listeners filled out a diary and wore a wrist-watch device at the same time. In their diaries they marked down that they listened to an average of 2.7 radio station each week, whilst the watches recorded that they actually listened to an average of 4.4 stations per week.
The research also found that people listen to the radio for shorter periods than they mark down in a diary, with the electronic measurement device recording an average of 2.5 hours per person, compared to the 23.2 hours recorded under the diary system.
More than 54% of all listening periods recorded by the wrist-watch device lasted between five minutes and half an hour, over 30% of uninterrupted listening was for a period of less than five minutes and less than 1% of all listening periods lasted longer than 4 hours.
Commenting on the findings, RAJAR’s managing director, Jane O’Hara, said: “The current industry agreed definition of listening is for a period of 5 minutes or over. The Wireless Group’s tests defined listening as a period of 1 minute or over. If you use this definition you are bound to get radically changed reach figures.”
She added: “A more important comparison would be to compare like for like. Something that RAJAR would do if it were to introduce an electronic audience measurement device.”
RAJAR is due to complete trials of the Arbitron pager and Radiocontrol watch measurement systems next year (see
RAJAR: 020 7903 5350 www.rajar.co.uk Wireless Group: 020 7269 7180
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