The aim of this paper is to describe the behaviour of previous-day radio listeners according to the number of listening sessions, that is the number of periods they are in contact with this medium in general. The article is in 4 parts. In the first part, we will introduce the radio survey which is the benchmark reference in France; the second part will be devoted to socio-demographic analysis and a description of the equipment of the four groups defined according to the number of daily radio- listening sessions. Part 3 studies the connection between the number of listening sessions and the number of stations listened to. The fourth chapter concentrates on studying how the listening sessions are positioned throughout the day, depending on the attitude group and the session's ranking in the succession of time-slots of radio contact. Radio as a media will be taken overall, without referring to its various components: groups or stations.
The placement of international radio programs on local frequencies, or rebroadcasting, is a growing phenomenon in the countries of the former Soviet Union. International broadcasters have hoped to stem the loss of listeners on shortwave frequencies and at the same time inherit new listeners from the local partner stations' audiences. While a certain amount of audience growth has taken place with rebroadcasting, it has not been clear why some rebroadcasting arrangements have been more successful than others and whether international broadcasters will be able to retain these new listeners. Over the last few years, the Media and Opinion Research department of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Research Institute (the predecessor to the Audience and Opinion Research department of the Open Media Research Institute) has carried out a two-tiered strategy combining city surveys and focus groups to study the many new questions posed by rebroadcasting, specifically as they concern RFE/RL. The research has revealed that rebroadcasting is not automatically beneficial. Arrangements vary and have greatly differing impacts on the international broadcaster's ability to retain its essential identity. If not handled properly, the rebroadcasting arrangement can be detrimental to both rebroadcasting partners. However, new listeners can be gained and retained if the right conditions of placement, scheduling and partner compatibility are met. This paper will discuss some of the important issues that rebroadcasting poses for international broadcasters and then examine the results from quantitative and qualitative studies in several cities in the former Soviet Union where Radio Liberty has entered into different rebroadcast arrangements.
RAJAR, the new joint industry measurement system for UK radio, was launched in 1993. As in the past, the RAJAR survey uses a one-week self-completion diary and a model is required to estimate station or schedule reach beyond seven days. Changes in the radio market have led to changes in listening habits and a consequent need to update the extended reach model. The new model is probability based and has been validated using a one-off four week diary study. The published station reach build curves are used by several bureaux as a basis for providing the advertising industry with a practical system for schedule reach and frequency analysis. Two bureaux - IMS and Telmar - collaborated to ensure consistency in their approach to the estimation of schedule reach. However, each system offers several ways in which the base data can be used, essentially depending upon whether a schedule is being planned in broad time segments or using exact spots. These permutations are seen to generate greater inconsistencies in estimates of frequency rather than reach. Without an understanding of how each bureaux system will interpret an analysis specification, buyers and sellers of airtime could well be negotiating with inconsistent and misleading reach and frequency results.
In line with the BBC's policy of 'Extending Choice 1' , BBC Local Radio stations have increased their reliance on broadcast journalism to distinguish them from the commercial competition. Over the past two or three years there has been a gradual reduction in their music content and an increase in speech; some stations have taken the process further and have become almost entirely speech stations. This policy has been successful in maintaining the reach and share of BBC Local Radio as a whole; however, its success at the individual station level has been more variable. Given that BBC Local Radio sees its raison d'etre as the provision of a speech-based service, qualitative research can provide further insights into how this policy can be linked to the needs of the potential audience. The paper illustrates how a combination of the analysis of continuous data from the RAJAR survey, with the results of quantitative surveys and qualitative (group discussion) research can be used to diagnose what makes for a successful BBC Local Radio station, operating under public-service guidelines. RAJAR data have shown that the considerable changes in the format of BBC Local Radio over the last few years, combined with an increase in local commercial competition, have not resulted in significant changes to its overall audience reach, share or profile: BBC Local Radio continues to obtain the majority of its listening from the over-55 age group. While the performance of individual stations varies over a wide range, it is not simply dependent on the intensity of competition from local commercial stations. 444In attitude surveys, BBC Local Radio is seen as friendly, informative and keeping people in touch with what is happening in their area, besides being professional and providing a quality service. Qualitative research with listeners and potential listeners to BBC Local Radio has underlined the importance of friendly, local presenters, and a strong sense of identification of the station with the local community. While local news and information are the hallmarks of the service, listeners also want to hear coverage of a range of local topics which reflect their pride and involvement in the local area.
The paper examines the relationship between CBC radio programs' audience size (as measured by BBM estimates of share) and audience qualitative appreciation (as measured by qualitative indices or QI's in the CBC's annual Qualitative Radio Study). The analysis shows that there clearly is a relationship between a program's share and listeners' level of enjoyment; programs with larger audiences tend to be more enjoyed by those who listen in, those programs with smaller audiences generally have lower QFs. There are of course exceptions to the general rule and these are what are of particular concern and form the basis of future research. The paper is divided into four sections: an introduction outlining the nature of concern for meaningful measurement of audience reaction to public service programming, including some background on CBC Radio's traditional approach to measuring program enjoyment; a methodology section explaining the annual survey of listeners on which program enjoyment measures are based the Qualitative Radio Study (QRS), and the nature of the current analysis; results of the analysis of the relationship between audience share and program enjoyment; and, a conclusion with some thoughts about measurements of audience reaction to radio programs. There is also an appendix with details of correlation analysis used in the study.
Television is seen as the dominant medium in the UK, because of its visual impact. However, it is expensive to buy, making lengthy campaigns prohibitive to many advertisers. Radio does not have the same visual impact, but it does have the powerful imagination of its listeners. It also has the advantage of being cheaper to buy and the ability to bring high frequency to campaigns. Virgin Radio commissioned the Visual Transfer project to show the important role that radio can perform in conjunction with its visual broadcast partner. We wanted to prove that radio does have a visual element which can be used in combination with television to enhance the commercial message and extend the life of an expensive campaign. The survey consisted of 500 face to face interviews conducted in respondent's homes to gauge awareness of advertising in general, as well as the more specific area of visual transfer. The results proved conclusively that with minimum effort and cost, television commercials can be transferred to radio with maximum effect.
"Radio NRW" is the biggest private radio station in Germany. It is broadcasted in the state of Northrhine-Westfalia (NRW) and thus it is competing against some of the public programmes, that have a huge competitive potential. It is therefore vital to put intensive care into research, in order to detect market potentials and hidden risks. To find out the reasons for programme appreciation and radio listener's expectations are some of the main objectives for research. One of the research strategies that were chosen to guarantee the best information level for the programme management is described in this paper. Quantitative research was found containing too little information to really understand the market mechanics. Therefore a qualitative research design was developed and brought into the field in order to explore the needs of actual and potential listenerships. With an advanced psychological theory of motivation forming the theoretical basis depth interviews uncovered the structure of psychological values that are - or are not - satisfied by radio programmes. It was found that we can discriminate 5 types of radio listeners or listening attitudes that explain most of the programme preferences. With this information at hands research was able to find a strengths/weaknesses profile for the competitors in terms of market exploitation. The paper describes the steps of this research process and explains the value of some of the findings.
From a panel organised by MEDIAMETRIE in January-February 1993 during three weeks based on a representative sample of French population, aged 15 and over (4,683 individuals), a treatment has been conducted in order to analyse answers from each participant by : - Duration of listening radio on three weeks - Share of listening dedicated to radio stations of Radio France network. Then, individuals who did not listened to Radio France have been classified into 7 different categories, in which listeners show an homogeneous listening behavior among them : - light radio listeners - light listeners to Radio France - average listeners to Radio France - heavy listeners to Radio France - strong radio listeners - very light listeners to Radio France - light listeners to Radio France - average listeners to Radio France - heavy listeners to Radio France For each level of listening, we describe : - audiences attitudes for different aggregate - socio-demographical profile of listeners. The survey's method by panel enabled us to evaluate public service radio reach. During the survey, half of the French population listened, at least once, one of the radio stations of Radio France network. It was interesting to define different ways of consuming these stations.
This paper briefly reviews a history of radio research in New Zealand and describes the relatively strong position of radio within the media market. This strength has continued in recent years. The authors describe the fully integrated involvement of the research contractor within the radio market and identify which success factors in the industry and research supplier relationship are critical to the sectors continued success.
This paper describes a system that helps to assess the impact of radio advertising, and to improve the creative quality of the executions. The "Spot-Check" project is an example of cost-effective research, respecting the constraints of the small budgets that are typical for radio advertising in Switzerland. The paper presents data from a pilot test. Spot-Check embraces two parts: Questions which are typical for Post-Tests and for Pre-Tests. The Pre-Test elements support the optimization of radio commercials in terms of executional quality. Indicators which differentiate between the tested commercials are likability, interest shift, and perceptional dimensions such as "striking", "entertaining" and informative. The key Post-Test measurement is recognition. The efficacy of commercials may be expressed as an index, calculated by dividing recognition score by GRPs. This "recognition % per 100 GRPs"- index differentiates between more and less efficient commercials. Patterns of relationship, however, between such "post-test" results and findings of the pre-test part are still to be established.
The Research Department of Radio Slovenia has, after twenty years of continuous research into radio listening, stated that the daily amount of radio listening has drastically dropped over the past year. The paper deals with the process of carefully adapting of data collection methods with a strict orientation towards receiving the best response from the chosen samples. The consequence of using relatively fixed methods of research is the fact that the researchers themselves have become so confident in their findings that they often deny the validity of certain numerical results in their own surveys.
Every researcher is asked the question: how big should the sample be? And every researcher has the same standard buck-passing answer: it depends on how accurately you want to measure what you measure. But given the amount of money that is traded on ratings numbers, it is important for the user to know what's real and what's statistical bounce in the surveys and therefore what the size of the sample should be to reduce this bounce to acceptable levels. The trouble is that the simple textbook formula we all know Vpq/n doesn't apply to the complex sample design and estimation procedures generally used in radio rating surveys. But techniques are available to estimate sampling errors empirically. BBM studies using such techniques show that there are two main influences on the size of sampling error and that they pull in different directions. The use of more than one respondent per household common in diary surveys tends to increase sampling error, and to increase it more, the wider the demographic. The use of average quarter-hour estimates tends to decrease the sampling error, and to decrease it more, the longer the time block being averaged. Generally, the latter effect dominates the former, meaning that the rating estimates are more reliable than the user might perhaps think. The details of sample design do matter too i. e. things like stratification, estimation procedures and particularly, the weighting scheme. We provide a case study of how attention to small technical details can pay off in increased precision just as much as an explicit increase in sample size: technique is as important as size.