Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Radio industry to test digital measurement system

The radio industry is to take some of its first steps towards an electronic system to increase the accuracy and speed of how it measures and reports audiences.

Listeners will soon be completing online listening diaries to complement the paper diary system.

The current system, run by Nielsen, sees diaries distributed at random, with listeners completing a log of their weekly listening habits. Each of the five major metro radio markets has around 2000 diaries gathering data during any given survey period. This information is then collated for the industry’s eight survey releases each year.

A common criticism of the system is that consumers do not keep track every 15 minutes of what they are actually listening to, but complete the diaries later based on what they best recall. This potentially skews share in favour of the highest profile – and most heavily marketed – stations.

Portable people meters, where actual listening is recorded rather than asking consumers to fill out a diary, would potentially address that drawback. But there are no immediate plans to introduce the technology, which is proving to be prohibitively expensive – even to trial.

(Source : mUmBRELLA, Australia via WorldDMB)

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