The paper was one of two nominated for the John & Mary Goodyear Award. They were chosen from 14 submissions from countries around the world to ESOMAR.

The research greatly enhances the targeting effectiveness of radio scheduling and will be incorporated into ACNielsen Radio Advisor, the next generation of analytical software soon to be released in Australia by ACNielsen Media International.

Entitled "Four Week Radio Survey – Evaluating Models for Extended Reach and Frequency", the paper was co-authored by Mark Neely, Client Service Director, ACNielsen Media International; Dr Cam Rungie, Centre for Industrial and Applicable Mathematics, University of South Australia; and Alexsandra Lyall, General Manager, Federation of Australian Radio Broadcasters (FARB). The paper was the culmination of a two-year process to revise the previous multi-week formula developed in 1985.

According to Neely, "The extended multi-week formula breaks new ground in its evaluation of 52-week schedules and there was keen interest among the 140 or so ESOMAR delegates when the paper was presented."

ACNielsen and FARB have been working together to finalise the delivery of the new multi-week reach and frequency module within Radio Advisor, ACNielsen’s software package used by radio stations and advertising agencies for the evaluation of radio airtime. The module is in its final test stage and is due to be released to the industry in August.

The paper will be judged along with all other nominated papers at the end of 2001, and all nominated papers will be published in ESOMAR’s yearbook of outstanding papers at the beginning of 2002.