Wireless Group Slams RAJAR’s Roadmap To Change
Kelvin MacKenzie’s Wireless Group, which owns the national talkSPORT radio station, has branded RAJAR’s proposals to introduce electronic measurement by 2007 as “excruciatingly longwinded”.
The broadcaster claims that RAJAR’s timeline for upgrading its existing diary system of audience measurement could have been put in place four years ago when it first began campaigning for the introduction of electronic audio meters.
The radio group predictably dismissed the ‘roadmap to change’ as “high on words but low on commitment”, saying: “Delay is built into every torturous step along this long and winding road of more tests, more evaluations and more consultations”.
The Wireless Group is currently attempting to sue RAJAR in the High Court over the alleged inaccuracy of its diary method of audience measurement and its decision not to replace it with a new electronic system along the lines of GfK’s National Broadcast Survey (see MacKenzie To Claim £66 Million In Damages From RAJAR).
It claims: “This latest RAJAR statement provides all the evidence anyone needs to understand why the Wireless Group has no alternative but to take RAJAR to court. We have no choice if we are to see any real action taken towards electronic measurement within any meaningful timeframe.”
RAJAR is committed to the introduction of electronic measurement and is working to ensure that any changes to the current system will not undermine the integrity of the currency used to trade millions of pounds worth of radio audiences each year (see RAJAR To Upgrade Audience Measurement System).
The radio ratings body plans for the launch of the tender process in April next year, with a contract for measurement awarded in September 2005. RAJAR’s managing director, Sally de la Bedoyere, said: “The RAJAR roadmap to enhanced radio audience measurement is ambitious, but certainly achievable. It is the final stage of a journey RAJAR began in 2001 and it leads to a seismic change in radio audience measurement, namely the possible move to electronic measurement” (see RAJAR To Upgrade Audience Measurement System).
Wireless Group: 020 7269 7180
Recent Radio Stories from NewsLine Clear Channel Circles As Radio Merger Talks Advance Ofcom In No Rush To Set Switch-Off Date For Radio Heart Rebrands As It Sets Sights On Capital
Subscribers can access ten years of media news and analysis in the Archive