When respondents are asked to recall ads in a real world context radio does well both in absolute terms and relative to television. Aided ad recall in this study averaged 32% across ninety-one radio ads vs. 38% a cross seventy-four ads for TV. Brand recall averaged 10% for radio and 17% for TV an index of 60. Results varied by category of ad and by the type of programming in which the ads ran. In particular brand recall for ads aired during radio news programs was roughly comparable to brand recall for ads aired in TV news programs. These results are particularly encouraging for radio considering the fact that in this study almost all of our respondents reported not having listened to the entire radio time slot which the ad aired or said they had been doing other things while listening.
In Canada, about 98% of all households have telephones, and unlisted telephone numbers are relatively rare. Given this, BUM has recruited participants for its radio ratings surveys using a sample frame of listed telephone numbers. In analyses of our typical sample profile, we have found that we tend to under-represent young, mobile, urban groups, the unemployed, students and those with lower income and education levels. We tested random digit dialing (RDD) in an attempt to improve representation of these groups. The differences between the RDD sample and a listed sample, however, seem to be quite small in the Canadian context. This paper compares an RDD sample with a listed sample, looking at demographic breakdowns, return rates, and tuning.