[cma-l] Deducing FM listening figures

[Andy King]

Hi Matthew,

Thank you for your post - it is indeed an 'age-old' discussion, but it's
one that is worth revisiting from time to time, as the question never goes
away! The more we discuss these things, the more likely we are to find some
kind of solution, so thank you for bringing it up. Incidentally, in the
latest figures, internet listening is at 6%:
http://www.mattdeegan.com/2013/07/31/rajar-facts-q22013/

There have been some fairly interesting and relevant posts on one of the
radio 'forums' recently, from a manager at Amber Sound FM in Derbyshire. He
has made enquiries to RAJAR and found that they were asking around £21,000
to survey the station. RAJAR's reasoning behind this is that there's
currently no structure in place to measure such small stations, so extra
surveys would need to be carried out in the specific community radio
licence area to get any sort of accuracy in results. You can see the
relevant message here:
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=68531594&postcount=34

Even small commercial stations sometimes struggle with RAJAR's methodology
- you can see the figures for some of the smaller licensees waver up and
down from survey to survey due to the small number of 'books' issued in
their TSAs. A few independent commercial stations have left RAJAR in recent
years, partly for this reason.

There is *definitely* a place for more 'scientific' surveys of community
radio audience figures than the current hotch-potch of independent surveys
and guesswork. However, I would have to question whether RAJAR is the way
ahead here - it's good for larger national and regional stations, but
doesn't seem particularly suited to very small TSAs. I'm going to open this
up to the list: does anyone have any thoughts on ways forward with this?

I'd also add the caveat that for *many* community radio stations, raw
audience numbers aren't as important as the actual engagement of the
audience. 100,000 people half-listening to Katy Perry in the background is
arguably less valuable than 10,000 people who are passionate about the
show's content and the local area, and actively engaging with the station.
In this way, the station is more of a 'trusted friend' than a remote
broadcaster miles away.

Anyway, some food for thought - I hope you find it useful!

Cheers
Andy


On 11 September 2013 09:45, Matthew Rogers <matthew at thesourcefm.co.uk>wrote:

> Hands up who gets asked, 'How many listeners do you have?' more than any
> other question..?
>
> I was just wondering if there was a semi-reliable or at least sector-wide
> way of telling listener figures without the assistance of Rajar? I'm aware
> of the '10% of the available listening audience' calculation and the
> 'online = 4.6% of total' calculation but these give wildly different
> numbers for Source FM and I guess I'm just wondering if this the same for
> everyone?
>
> Would there be any milage in asking Rajar to release a less expensive
> community radio package with limited shared information to CMA members?
> (sorry if this is an age old discussion)
>
> Cheers and gone..!
> --
> Matthew Rogers - Station Manager
> www.thesourcefm.co.uk
> Tel: 01326 211 782
> Mob: 07789746933
> Listen to Source FM Live<http://live.canstream.co.uk:8000/sourcefm.mp3.m3u>
>
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-- 
Andy King
Technical Assistant
Community Media Association
http://www.commedia.org.uk/
0114 279 5219

Canstream Internet Radio & Video
http://www.canstream.co.uk/
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