The first RAJAR survey,available to the industry from February 1993 removes a number of the restrictions and frustrations that existed previously. At a meeting held yesterday at the IPA, RSL and Rajar explained to suppliers and IPA(rep: Anthony Jones,Dorland) the format of the new survey and James Galpin (AIRC) stressed that this is the most “open” survey yet.
The survey will be based on 1,000 diaries weekly and will cover 186 radio stations initially (5 national BBC, 51 local BBC, 2 INR, 128 IR) with others, notably two more INR and the BBC’s rolling news to come on-line in due course. Perhaps the most important change from JICRAR is that individual service data will be available almost without exception. Only stations with an adult population of under 300,000 can publish solely as part of a parent station.This removes the frustrations caused by data for “East” or “West” Midlands or for most of Yorkshire or the entire Metro Group.
It will also be possible to analyse sub-sets of data – eg Classic in London or Capital in Brixton (Choice FM TSA). No “out of area” listening will be recorded except Classic and Atlantic initially. Other changes from JICRAR:
* Several individuals in a household will be questioned now
* BBC locals are now named in the diary
* Qualification for listening is now 5 minutes out of any 15 (JICRAR was “at all”).
* Children now defined as 4-14 (5-14).
* Data to be released on local paid newspapers.
Costs There will be a cost for book only subscribers (more than the current £360 to reflect extra data) and a further charge for electronic access. There may also be a charge for electronic access only Further investigation is to be carried out into linking respondents with a TV region code and into adding geo-demographics. IR regions have been re-drawn to provide “best fits” with TV regions.
Mediatel will be launching a new, extended Radio Planning Database in the New Year which will include analysis of the new RAJAR and programming information for all the IR and INR stations.
