[cma-l] Community Radio Order

Thu Jan 22 09:00:09 GMT 2015

James,

Don't read too much into RAJAR.

Here's a real example explained to me by a well known (but will remain
nameless) Programme Controller.

Imagine a normal town with 2 stations in it A and B. A is in RAJAR, B is
not.  Station A informs RAJAR of its TSA and the postcodes it would like
surveying. 

In practise it's not possible to survey all postcodes in the TSA, so RAJAR
will need to extrapolate the data for the whole of the TSA.

As a Programme Controller with a limited budget, you target your marketing
and promotion to the postcodes in the survey, knowing that when the data
gets extrapolated you will have gained listeners in postcode areas where
realistically you wouldn't expect there to be that many.

Meanwhile, Station B who is not in RAJAR is also surveyed by proxy in
Station A's TSA through the 'Other' category. But because Station A's
figures are inflated, Station B's figures will be deflated not only in any
overlap with Station A, but also in its own TSA. Making the 'Other' category
a very unreliable measure as well as the whole survey. 

Now if we add another station C who are also in RAJAR. They will of course
do the same as station A. Again their figures are inflated and the non RAJAR
station B, will again have less. 

The point is that using the 'Other' category as a measure is floored.   

All things being equal, you'd expect Radio2's audience to be very
consistent. Their figures are made up from 100s of individual surveys so
anomalies in the data come out in the wash. This is what I understand
happens with the data for large stations which have overlapping TSAs with
smaller stations.    

I'm sure the people at Ipsos, RSMB and RAJAR are very clever and look to
correct errors but, in the example explained to me it appears the system has
its floors. 

Kind Regards

Alan

From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of James Cridland
Sent: 21 January 2015 18:42
To: The Community Media Association Discussion List
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Order

Alex: "Aren't RAJAR respondents who can tick 'other' living only in the
areas where at least one station is a RAJAR member?" - maybe. The BBC runs
ten national networks, plus Scotland/Wales/Ulster, and that commercial radio
also measures a lot on a national basis, so there is a requirement for
national coverage. But even if your assertion is true, is there really a
significant population who don't have *any* local RAJAR'd station covering
their area? 

"In our own area the reach of community radio by three high sampling surveys
over a 12-year period has indicated a fairly steady weekly reach of 60-70%
of the adult population." - great, good for you, but I suspect 2LR is the
exception rather than the rule. As one example, Asian Star Radio in Slough
broadcasts to British Asians, who only make up 33% of the population... I
can't get the 10m figure to stack up, I'm afraid.

Paul: Thanks for that. 20% in your licence area (definitely an area with a
RAJAR subscriber!) is a good figure, I think. I've seen more online activity
for Phoenix FM than I've seen for any community radio service (since you
appear to be fairly active on Google+ where I spend a bit of time) - good
for you.

Alan: "'Other' actually includes some commercial stations and not just
community radio." - yes, I'd agree. I've assumed for my "500k" estimate that
EVERYONE who has ticked the 'other' box in a community radio transmission
area is ticking it because of community radio. If you're saying this is
unrealistically high, I'd probably agree with you.

"The size of the survey is not important it's the percentage error and
repeatability. I would be interested to hear if anyone knows what RAJAR's
error and repeatability rates percentages are, even with a panel of
100,000?" - yeah, I ask this from time to time. It differs a lot based on
different stations - the margin of error for a small station is higher than
that for a larger one with more diaries, of course. I'm told that the margin
of error is around 3%.

In terms of 'repeatability',
http://media.info/radio/stations/bbc-radio-2/listening-figures is a national
RAJAR history since 1999, which - for weekly reach - looks pretty sane.
http://media.info/radio/stations/xfm/listening-figures for London's Xfm
shows rather more noise: mainly because 25-year old men are really hard to
survey. Smaller survey areas like Radio Carmarthenshire's 120,000 area are
normally done on a rolling yearly basis:
http://media.info/radio/stations/971-radio-carmarthenshire/listening-figures
looks relatively sane too.

So, after all of this - what is community radio's own estimate? I'd
recommend joining the conversation on the article itself -
http://media.info/radio/data/community-radio-listening-figures-do-10-million
-people-tune-in-every-week - the only comment so far is insinuating that
your audience is even lower than my (quite generous, I thought) estimate.

On Wed Jan 21 2015 at 5:40:23 PM Alan Coote <alan.coote at 5digital.co.uk>
wrote:

Hi James,

It's always good to see that something I mention turns into a Blog! J

When I last spoke to RAJAR they acknowledged that about 40% of UK stations
weren't in the survey. This means 'Other' actually includes some commercial
stations and not just community radio.

The size of the survey is not important it's the percentage error and
repeatability. I would be interested to hear if anyone knows what RAJAR's
error and repeatability rates percentages are, even with a panel of 100,000?

I suspect the reason BARB only surveys 8,000 homes is because the equipment
registers which channel is tuned so they are able to get statistically
accurate results with a much smaller panel.

As a footnote, talking to Sky, I was told they get more accurate audience
and demographic figures than BARB by using by AdSmart and Experian data and
it's in near realtime.       

Kind Regards

Alan

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From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of James Cridland
Sent: 21 January 2015 14:40

To: The Community Media Association Discussion List
Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Order

PS: I think the figure is about half a million. Here are my workings -
http://media.info/radio/data/community-radio-listening-figures-do-10-million
-people-tune-in-every-week

On Wed Jan 21 2015 at 2:03:33 PM James Cridland <james at cridland.net> wrote:

Alex: >>I know at the Radio Acadamey a couple of years back RAJAR said they
do measure all other stations, including Internet radio, but have you ever
had any indication of just how they might manage to do that, and how
reliable their figure is?<<

Respondents are asked to tick the "other radio" box when they are listening
to "the radio" but it's a station that they don't have a sticker for - i.e.
a station that isn't in RAJAR. On a national level, this figure is amazingly
reliable, because it's a national sample size of over 100,000 adults - many
times larger than TV's 8,000 household number.

Alan: >>I was working from memory on the 10 million (which I acknowledge is
getting worse the older I get) A report was produced by Ofcom on Community
Radio.<<

You said "Community radio reaches 10 million people a week". The radio
industry uses "reach" as short-hand for "people who tune in", so I was
slightly surprised at that figure, since it's so different from RAJAR.

Here's the Ofcom report:

http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/broadcast/radio-ops/CR-AR-10-11.pd
f

...and the actual line is paragraph 2.26, which reads... 

>>Based on our computer modelling of population data and signal reception,
we

estimate that close to 10.5 million adults (just over 12.5 million people in
total) are

able to receive a community radio station broadly aimed at them<<

So, "community radio reaches 10 million people a week" is factually untrue.
Instead, "community radio could be received by about 10.5 million people a
week" is correct. In fact, this 10.5m figure is the total possible reach
that community radio could have if everyone who could pick up community
radio did so.

On Wed Jan 21 2015 at 1:38:37 PM Alan Coote <alan.coote at 5digital.co.uk>
wrote:

Hi James,

I was working from memory on the 10 million (which I acknowledge is getting
worse the older I get) A report was produced by Ofcom on Community Radio.

I accept the RAJAR figures as more resent. Although the principle of making
any statistical sense of 'Other' is a bit like knowing how much Dark Matter
there is in the Universe - we know there some but no one knows how much.

The rest of the figures are available on the Web.    

Kind Regards

Alan

From: cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
[mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] On Behalf Of James Cridland
Sent: 21 January 2015 12:49

To: The Community Media Association Discussion List

Subject: Re: [cma-l] Community Radio Order

> Given community radio reaches 10 million people a week

Do you have a source for this, Alan?

RAJAR's "other radio" line, which should contain all non-subscribers to
RAJAR, says 3.8m/week, of which community radio would be alongside pirate,
internet and "not radio but calls itself radio".

//j

On Wed Jan 21 2015 at 12:20:12 PM Phil Edmonds <lists at philedmonds.info>
wrote:

The main two points to summarise the many dozens of messages that have
been coming back and forth over past few days:

1 - To run a community radio station top of the list needs to be a paid
'Station Manager' of some description.

2 - Most community radio stations are so strapped for cash that this is
difficult to achieve. A significant majority have an hard time covering
'core costs' never mind any development work.

So what in my view what does "the announcement" need to address? All
links to my overarching issue "financing the sector".

1 - Licence renewal process.
We're now only months away from the "first batch" of stations current
licences expiring with no renewal process in place. What chance has any
one got of getting anywhere near a sustainable business plan if they
don't know if they'll still have a licence?

2 - Removal of on-air advertising restrictions for stations overlapping
small commercial radio stations.
The turnover of a community radio station is so small as to have no
meaningful impact on a "small commercial licence" holders business. A
decade down the road from the original ruling a commercial station's
real competitor on a local scale is Google and Facebook advertising. At
least a community radio station can help keep the money in the local
economy, not to some off-shore multi-national.

3 - Community Radio Fund.
Everyone thinks it's too small. If it's aim is to help towards core
costs or building sustainability in the sector it's clearly not working
as effectively as it could. Perhaps it would be better if a chunk of the
funds were just directed towards Ofcom to subsidise Community Radio
Ofcom licence fees? Even extending this to the music licensing bodies -
sector wide blanket licences at zero cost to stations sounds good.

4 - 50% advertising and sponsorship rule.
I'd propose that this isn't as pressing a worry as some think. A
diversity of funding sources I think helps protect the qualities of a
community radio station. Once you've claimed for volunteer time, it's
actually a 66% rule in 'cash terms' - and possibly an even higher
percentage if you've any support "in kind" you can claim for on your
Ofcom return.

Phil.

On 20/01/2015 20:28, Canalside's The Thread wrote:
> Here's a few Dom :- from Mr Wright in Bangingheadagainstwallshire
>
> 1)Why have successive Governments and Ministers pandered to commercial
> radio whilst neglecting community radio ?
>
> 2)Why have we still got restrictions after 12 years ?
>
> 3)Have the requests that we have been asking for the last 6 years been
> implemented ?
>
> 4)On Thursday will you be making a speech telling us everything we
> already know ? or are there serious beneficial changes for us      will
> bureaucracy and reporting be reduced ?
>
> 5)Do you think that some Community Radio Stations deserve a gold clock
> for managing to stay afloat whilst still achieving their key commitments
> ?  under the clouds of restrictions
>
> 6)Will there be a little more money going in the Community Radio Pot ?
> as we have gotten the same amount that was in 10 years ago with more
> Stations on-air
>
> 7)Re:- restrictions ... if they do stay in some way shape or form how
> come 4 major on-air Stations have had to operate with NO ON-AIR
> Advertising at all and by the way you are not allowed to use the small
> ILR argument or the less than 150,000 argument as neither are relevant
> and neither are true. The Stations are mainly part of bigger groups
> which lifts them above the 150,000 anyway
>
> 8)Are we to start limbering up ready for the announcement (ie:- putting
> our deep heat on) as in are we going to have nice little smiles on our
> faces afterwards or is it going to be a damp squib ?
>
> 9)Do you seriously think there will be a falling over of commercial
> Stations if restrictions are lifted ? because I don't.
>
> 10)How are things in the DCMS ?
>
> 11)Would you like a cup of tea and a Hob Knob ?
>
> 12)And finally . all the Stations who have done a wonderful job will
> they be given first bite of the cherry when / if extensions of licences
> are offered      which by the way I also think should be the case .. If
> not, could you tell us why we shouldn't then all pack up now and go home ?
>
> It's a good job I'm not interviewing him, we'd get to about number 5 and
> then he'd walk out after 10 minutes
>
> I think it sums things up to be honest when a Bill that has now turned
> up 4 years after it should have is now having only 15 minutes laid aside
> for discussion.
>
> All tongue in cheek of course .. Ed's a decent man I know, and Dom will
> do a good job
>
> And well done to all the Community Radio fraternity
>                         by the way Dom, do you know roughly what is in
> the Bill or not. The reason I ask is because you will have to have some
> idea so that you know what you are asking him ... if this is true, then
> my questions do not need to be asked as you will be on a '''positive'''
> footing ... if you do not know what is in the document, then sadly my
> questions are relevant and you good have an argument / debate situation
> on your hands. I like to think we have gone past that point now and that
> my questions are now consigned to the bin ... apart from the Hon Knob J
>
> Nick
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *From:*cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk
> [mailto:cma-l-bounces at mailman.commedia.org.uk] *On Behalf Of *CMA-L
> *Sent:* 20 January 2015 17:34
> *To:* cma-l at commedia.org.uk
> *Subject:* [cma-l] Community Radio Order
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: *Dom Chambers* <chair at commedia.org.uk
<mailto:chair at commedia.org.uk>>
>
> TO CMA members,
>
> The Community Radio Order is due to be published on Thursday this week.
> I will be interviewing  DCMS minister Ed Vaizey on Thursday morning.
> Time is limited to around 15 minutes for this. I will be conducting the
> interview on behalf of the CMA and welcome any questions you might like
> me to consider informing the interview. We will naturally focus on the
> content and implications of the CRO but this will be an opportunity to
> also ask about other areas of community media development.
>
> Best to all,
>
> Dom 1
>
> *Dom Chambers*
> *Chair*
>
> *Mobile*: +44 (0) 7802 457 396
> *Direct Line*: +44 (0) 1761 568 004*
> CMA Office: *+44 (0) 1142 795 219
> *Email:* Chair at Commedia.org.uk <mailto:Chair at Commedia.org.uk>
> *Personal Twitter:* @TheDomChambers <http://twitter.com/thedomchambers>
>
> *cmalogo44mmURL*
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> <http://www.avast.com/>
>
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>
>
>
>
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