New Study To Shake-Up Audience Measurement?
The results of the first ever electronic measurement survey of television and radio audiences have been published today, in a move that could shake-up the auditing of broadcast media.
The research commissioned by Kelvin MacKenzie’s Wireless Group and conducted by research firm GfK, suggests that speech based radio stations are more popular than under the official system of audience measurement.
BBC Radio 4 was found to be the UK’s most listened to station, with a weekly reach of 17.9 million, nearly 8 million more than its industry recognised RAJAR figure for the three months ending March 2003. The survey added more than 4 million to BBC Radio Five Live’s weekly reach and the Wireless Group-owned talkSPORT was boosted by around 6 million to become the most listened to national commercial station, according to GfK.
However, the results have been contested by RAJAR’s managing director, Jane O’Hara, who emphasised: “It is important for the whole industry to bear in mind that the data published by GfK cannot be compared to that which is published by RAJAR.”
She added: “In the case of the GfK research the data is based on a small sample of respondents, less than one fifteenth that of RAJAR; only nine stations were reported on and the GfK definition of listening is very different.”
The research, which uses electronic wristwatches to record everything the wearer listens to, also reveals large increases in weekly reach for out-of-home viewing to Sky Sports 2 and Sky News, which saw their existing BARB audiences double. However, this could be due to coverage of the war in Iraq during the survey period, which ran from 10 March to 20 April.
BBC2 recorded a weekly reach of 40.5 million, which equates to 90% of the population. This is slightly ahead of ITV which was found to have a weekly reach of 40.2 million, or 89% of the population.
The research could challenge the existing industry systems by offering advertisers a single port of call for television and radio audience measurement.
Kelvin MacKenzie has been critical of RAJAR’s existing diary system of audience measurement, claiming that it damages advertising revenue at certain radio stations by underestimating the size of their audience (see TWG Research Claims Radio Listening Is Under-Represented).
BARB has also faced criticism from advertisers and broadcasters angry at the disruption caused by the introduction of the new methodology at the beginning of last year (see BARB Data Suspended Until 15 January).
However, RAJAR has been carrying out extensive research into the use of electronic meters to measure radio audiences (see RAJAR To Complete Meter Testing) and BARB is working to increase the size of its audience panel (see MRG Conference: New BARB The Story So Far).
RAJAR’s managing director, Jane O’Hara, said: “While the GfK research may be of interest to certain sectors of the media industry, its release will have no effect on RAJAR’s current research methodology and reporting format.”
She also pointed out: “What the release of this data does do is to raise very starkly two important issues for the radio industry that neither GfK nor The Wireless Group has addressed. First, do audio-meters provide us with a greater form of accuracy or a different form of inaccuracy? Second, what is the impact of changing the definition of listening? GfK and TWG have assumed that listening for four seconds in a minute is acceptable without revealing whether there is a potential for false listening, or how those very short listening periods impact listener volumes.”
RAJAR is due to report to its board at the end of next month on the issues raised by the survey.
GfK: 0870 603 8339 www.gfk.com RAJAR: 020 7903 5350 www.rajar.co.uk Wireless Group: 020 7959 7800
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