[cma-l] Listening figures

[Al Garthwaite]

We do listener surveys for radio broadcasts. Volunteers (usually) or staff
members (if time) go out in pairs with short prepared questionnaires to
places where people are amenable to being stopped e.g. outside the Co-op,
shopping streets, some residential streets. We ask the interviewees to
choose a diverse selection of people to question and ask them to tick at the
top of each sheet whether the person is female or male, approx age and
approx ethnicity (we don't ask the interviewee these things). 

It is important that the interviewers are approachable and unthreatening in
their appearance, and friendly. Young people under 20 don't get much of a
response, though girls do better than boys. However, girls and young women
are targets for sexual harassment. A pair of shy 16-year-old boys with
knitted hats got nowhere. Young men tend to be avoided by the public in
general. Mature-looking women aged 30-50 got the most responses (no-one
older than 50 went out, so older than 50 may be OK as well - I would think
so). Racism is a factor in who some members of the public are willing to
speak to. Obviously this will depend on the area. 

Last summer we did a 4 week RSL and used the survey opportunity partly to
publicise the RSL, so started during Week One, at a time when publicity was
pretty recent. Of 231 responses during the 4 weeks, we found that 47% knew
about the station, and of those, 45% had listened to at least one programme;
all but one of them were positive about what they had heard. 215 of the 231
thought it was a very good idea to have a station. Awareness increased at
time went on.

These were daytime and weekend figures, although one staff member did some
after-work surveying. Lots of people listen in cars, and surveys miss them.
We meant to go to pubs but it didn't happen. Another time we'll try primary
school gates just before 3pm but the parent crowd thins and leaves pretty
quickly.

Really it depends on your people-power. For our most recent 3-week RSL we
didn't have so much of that. We were finding that more people were aware of
it, but no higher percentage of them had listened. If we could broadcast all
the time I am sure the numbers would increase.

At least 100 responses are necessary before a survey is in any way
statistically significant and quotable.  

Al

Alison Garthwaite
Director
Vera Media & LeedselevenFM
30-38 Dock Street
Leeds LS10 1JF
+44(0)113 242 8646



-----Original Message-----
From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of Steven Suttie
Sent: 02 June 2008 13:14
To: cma-l at commedia.org.uk
Subject: [cma-l] Listening figures

Dear All,

A question I am asked by everybody...guests, advertisers, volunteers, is
"how many listeners have you got?"

I know we've had 48,300 streams downloaded in the past 6 months, by 
5,000  unique listeners. But in terms of FM listeners I don't have a 
clue and have no option but to say this.

We have listeners, I know this by doing comps (87 entries to the 
Nintendo Wii giveaway).

But my question to you: How do you measure listener numbers?

I hope you can help, and that this thread is of use to everybody else.

Ta.

Kindest Regards
Steve Suttie
Station Manager, 94.4FM  Salford City Radio
0161 793 2939 (Office) 07772  355852 (Mobile)
CHECK OUT http://www.salfordcityradio.org/
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