Terms of Engagement

Rajar is to introduce an online radio listening diary and a new digital personal interviewing aide from Quarter 3/2011.

The digital rollout of collection data is being introduced as radio engagement evolves across an increasing number of platforms, including the internet and mobile phones.

Rajar claims the move will enable it to offer improved demographic representation and will enhance the capture of listening data across all platforms; whether analogue, internet, DAB or DTV.  The new online survey will mirror the current paper diary in content, allowing all data to be integrated for reporting.

This is not, though, a new electronic system of measurement; it's simply offering diary-holders the opportunity to provide their listening info in a different way.  That is still likely to be some years away.

It's been introduced in the US in recent years by Arbitron (the US radio ratings company) using their Portable People Meter (PPM). What's been interesting from the US experience has been the way the PPM has resulted in some very different figures for some stations. 

Harker Research is not impressed with the way PPM is being used and also point out that, unlike their American counterparts, European broadcasters insisted on carrying out their own tests. In the UK Rajar tested a number of devices, including the PPM, and got markedly different results from identical models being exposed to the same radio listening pattern.  Allen Kepler of Broadcast Architecture has also aired some controversial views on Mark Ramsey's Blog.

One other problem the PPM has thrown-up is what has been called "drive-by listening", in other words tracking listening data from a station that the PPM-wearer is not actively listening to.

For example, if I pop into my local corner shop to get a pint of milk and they have the radio on I'm only there for a few minutes and, therefore, would not include that very brief snatch of listening in a diary because it's less than 15 minutes.  Electronic measurement, though, says I was listening, because the PPM operates on a smaller time-frame.

This, in turn, raises the matter of engagement; whether people are actually listening to a particular station, or whther it's just on in the background.

In the 1980s ad agency Howell Henry Chaldecott Lury ran a controversial ad in the trade magazine Campaign which questioned the reliability of existing media research.

In the 2010s the problem would still appear to be with us.

Don't get me wrong. I'm all in favour of improving the way Rajar works. The current paper diary may be old-fashioned and rely on listener recall but it's been shown to be statistically robust and the new measures being introduced are more evolutionary than revolutionary.  Electronic measurement will happen eventually, but the results must still be robust and enable the radio industry to continue to buy into the Rajar data and its "common currency" across the industry.

It is also becoming increasingly essential to broaden the range of radio research to provide credible metrics to cover online and non-linear listening, music streaming services such as Spotify and community radio.  So far only the BBC and Absolute Radio are the only broadcasters who regularly publish such comparable information.