[cma-l] FM Listening Figures

Wed Sep 11 12:15:44 BST 2013

Imagine the length of the list these days with everything to can listen to world wide on the Internet.
Reinforces my point I think.

Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 12:08:11 +0100
Subject: Re: [cma-l] FM Listening Figures
From: glynroylance at googlemail.com
To: transplanfm at hotmail.com
CC: darren at digienable.co.uk; andy.king at commedia.org.uk; matthew at thesourcefm.co.uk; cma-l at commedia.org.uk

Ian - I've taken apart in one survey once - probably over 20 years ago now I was approached in a shopping centre.

Trouble was my listening habits in those days were probably more "adventurous" than Joe Public, so they did not have most of the stations I listened to on their tick sheet!  So Caroline, Laser, Nova Dublin, KFM and various other stations that I listened to just went into the "other" category!

Glyn

On 11 September 2013 11:34, Ian Hickling <transplanfm at hotmail.com> wrote:

Darren seems to have arrived at a workable solution.
Of course advertisers want an idea of who is listening and how many - and so should the station as well.
"Reach" is a term subjective to other data and is only a means to get to an end.
"TSA" is again a token figure and can easily be manipulated by the station to serve its own ends.
I'll say it for you - I've said it before - RAJAR is a joke at best and a confidence trick at worst.
The sample size is ridiculously small - and in 20-odd years I've never ever come across anyone who has taken part - or for that matter ever seen a "diary".
But it's all there is - and advertisers seem to think they need something to work on - however inaccurate it may prove to be.
CR stations doing their own surveys by talking to people in the streets - and as a pre-requisite using well-chosen and unbiassed questions would appear to be the only way.

Date: Wed, 11 Sep 2013 11:12:49 +0100
From: Darren at DigiEnable.co.uk
To: andy.king at commedia.org.uk; matthew at thesourcefm.co.uk; cma-l at commedia.org.uk
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Deducing FM listening figures

We've just completed a project for a community radio station to establish their listening figures. However the station wanted qualitative as well as quantitative feedback. So we conducted a city wide survey as well as a series of focus groups, to find the information they wanted. This went way beyond the sort of information that RAJAR would gather and at a fraction of the price. 

I suppose it comes down to why you want the numbers. I worked in community radio for 12 years and spoke to a number of potential advertisers over that time. They wanted to know “How many people are listening?” and “What’s the Demographic?” They don’t care about reach or comparative data between stations. 

We delivered this project because the station wanted the information to come from an “outside” agency to give it validity and show it as an unbiased piece of work, but also because they managed to attract some funding to enable the project to take place.

Additionally, as we were being paid to conduct the research we were perhaps more committed to delivering the project well and on time, which as I’m sure you’re all aware can slip when you have a full time station to run. 

I suppose what I’m trying to say is that RAJAR doesn't make sense to me, certainly not for community radio. As Andy said, it’s not just about the numbers although that is the headline that most people want, collect the qualitative as well (what do people enjoy, what could be improved). 

Some key points from conducting our own survey:-

It has to be face to face – Online surveys usually tend to reach the people who already know about you. Get a table at a schools fun day; attend a community fair, you will get a much more realistic range of statistics this way.

Offer a prize – It only needs to be small but it encourages more people to take part.

Get a decent sample size – Surveys which are filled in by 50-100 people tell you very little. We survey just short of 500 people for a TSA of 170,000. This means the results are accurate within a 5% range. If you want to work out what this would be for your area there is a calculator here http://www.surveysystem.com/sscalc.htm

Data entry is a nightmare – Unfortunately, there isn’t really a way around this and this is where you really need dedicated staff or volunteers. Unless, you are paying someone else to do it, in which case that’s their problem.

Darren

Darren Jenkinson
07958327516
Darren at DigiEnable.co.uk  
www.DigiEnable.co.uk

From: Andy King <andy.king at commedia.org.uk>
To: Matthew Rogers <matthew at thesourcefm.co.uk>; cma-l at commedia.org.uk 
Sent: Wednesday, 11 September 2013, 10:04
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Deducing FM listening figures

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
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