The âaudiometerâ*, a generic term perhaps preferable to âradiometerâ given its applications equally to TV as for radio audience measurement, offers the marketplace a major technological advance in the measurement of broadcast audiences. The Radiocontrol Watch is used in Switzerland for national radio audience measurement. In the United States Arbitron has mounted its Philadelphia 300 Panel. This paper reviews the critical issue of the validity of these new systems. Do they actually measure what they purport to measure? Do people actually wear the devices from first thing in the morning to last thing at night? How exposed are they to false negatives and false positives: failing to pick up media exposure that has taken place, crediting TV/radio viewing/listening when there was none? These are the early days, but the early evidence from Arbitron and Radiocontrol looks most promising.
This paper assesses the potential of the radiometer in offering the radio (and television) industry a major breakthrough for the measurement of their audiences. Each of the systems under development is a quasi-passive device. It will be essential for the developers of these proprietary systems to establish whether people will wear their devices throughout the day: from first thing in the morning to last thing at night. The validity of a radiometer audience measurement currency will be dependent on the highest standards of respondent compliance being achieved throughout the day. The prospective customer will need to be convinced of this.
Television is increasingly an international medium that transcends country boundaries. Similarly, for radio there is nowadays a keen interest in being able to compare audiences between markets. The requirement, therefore, for audience systems themselves to be comparable from one country to another has become a priority for both broadcasters themselves and the commercial marketplace. For international advertisers and advertising-funded channels, GGTAM is an attempt to establish an international âexchange rateâ for TV audience measurement systems throughout the world.
The international joint industry Audience Research Methods (ARM) Group plans to publish GGTAM, its Global Guidelines for Television Audience Measurement, in spring 1999. This paper first reviews the origin of these internationally endorsed and professional guidelines, and subsequently summarizes the ten (guiding) principles of the guidelines, along with some key components, such as data collection and data reporting.
The paper describes the issues associated with researching the market potential for Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), a concept that was, at the time, largely unknown to most of the public. The work was sponsored by organisations with a wide range of objectives and posed a number of challenges, not least of which was how to communicate the concept to respondents. The approach that was adopted was to use a carefully structured questionnaire that introduced the various features of DAB in stages, identifying their importance to the respondent, interest in acquiring a DAB radio for the car or home and the perceived price premium. The survey provides a rich source of data that identifies: the demographic groups that are most interested in DAB; the key features that are likely to be of most importance (the key âdriversâ for DAB); and the extent to which a common marketing strategy can be applied across Europe and where between-country differences require distinct Marketing approaches.
This paper follows up a range of issues about the validity and reliability of radio audience measurement systems across Western European countries. Evidence of their unreliability was in particular demonstrated by what can happen to a country's radio listening when changes are made to the measurement technique itself - even quite minor ones. The apparent untidiness in our data also arises from the wide range of measurement techniques used: recall or diary face-to-face or telephone as part of a multi-media survey or not and, for diaries, personal placement and collection against postal. It would appear that making cross-country comparisons is a perilous undertaking. This paper continues the detective work. An attempt has been made, with the aid of each country's data supplier, to draw up a comparative study of the main methodological conventions and practices followed in sixteen separate countries. The paper concludes with a recommendation that a checklist of "good professional practice" should be developed by the international research community to encourage moves towards more standardised procedures as and when contractual conditions in individual countries may permit ... from which in due course no doubt the radio equivalent of the TV peoplemeter can benefit as and when it becomes available off the shelf at a price the industry can afford.
This paper sets out to: Compare the published radio audience figures for a wide range of countries in Western Europe, as generated by their national audience measurement systems. Look for any systematic differences in the figures being reported by diary-based and 24-hour recall systems respectively. Examine evidence of the reliability (or otherwise) of these two conventional techniques for measuring radio audiences - not least what happens to figures when methodological changes are introduced. Report the professional opinions of the public broadcaster research community of the relative strengths and weaknesses of the two techniques. Examine empirical evidence of the validity and reliability of radio audience measurement systems. Argue for more debate within the research community towards a consensus on preferred technical procedures for radio audience measurement - separately for 24-hour recall on the one hand and the 7-day self-completion diary on the other. â Demonstrate the pay-off of such initiatives in terms of the value of more robust radio audience figures, to meet the needs both of senior broadcasting management for basic measures of public accountability and of the advertising community.
This paper sets out to summarise and to invite comment and criticism of the recently published 2nd edition of the EBU guidelines "Towards Harmonization of Television Audience Measurement Systems". It has been a collaborative venture involving representatives of all parties to the broadcast media business, from both the broadcasters themselves and from both the advertising agency and advertiser sectors. The principal emphasis of the paper is on what is new to the 2nd edition: The organisational principles desirable for a national system, to obtain wide-ranging user group participative consultation, methodological transparency and even-handed data access arrangements, Rather more than in the first edition of how to collect reliable and valid TV viewing data, via the peoplemeter as a device for registering the viewing behaviour of individual household members. Rather more than in the first edition on the issues of principle in the data reporting arrangements of a national system, and the low-cost powerful PC-based data access options open to the user. The challenges that lie around the comer. In particular we draw attention to the more immediate issues on which a consensus within the media research community has still to be reached, including: Selection of panel homes - probability procedures v panel controls. Enforced panel turnover. The definition of "viewing" Editing rules. Reporting algorithms. â Comprehensiveness of Channel reporting. Access to data, both at an aggregated and disaggregated level. Issues of standardisation in reporting conventions.
How Television and Radio audiences are measured varies widely across the world, and specifically in Europe. That differences in techniques matter is demonstrated. Users of research data, whether representing the interests of international brands or of public broadcasters, need figures that can be compared across national boundaries. A European joint industry working party has been working to this end over the past year. It has published a report giving recommendations on good practice in the data collection and reporting procedures for Television peoplemeter systems. There remain (at least) three issues that need to be resolved by a programme of experimental work that would be painless to research budgets if tackled on a joint industry basis: 1. "presence" v "viewing" 2. linkage of audience appreciation 3. the software conventions of what constitutes a "viewer" at a particular moment. A challenge is put to the industry to invest in its own future.
This paper examines the market research profession in Britain from two view points: who we are at present and how we provide for the continuation of the species.
The purpose of this paper is to suggest some of the implications of this consumerist movement upon our own market research activities. I begin with a brief historical account of how it has developed in the United Kingdom - a development which is probably paralleled by the equivalent phenomenon in most developed countries. We briefly rehearse the consumerist as arguments as such and the defences commonly put up against them. I review the role that Market Research has for many years played in safeguarding consumer interests - though at the time such projects were not seen in this light.