RAJAR Sets Timetable for New Approach

Radio audience measurement body RAJAR has committed itself to a 'roadmap' with a timetable for up-grading the current system, including the possible introduction of electronic measurement. The tender process will be launched in April 2005 and the new contract awarded as early as September 2005.

The RAJAR board represents BBC Radio, Commercial Radio, the IPA and ISBA. MD Sally de la Bedoyere says the roadmap is 'ambitious, but certainly achievable. It is the final stage of a journey RAJAR began in 2001 and it leads to a seismic change in radio audience measurement, namely the possible move to electronic measurement. We are optimistic that, by 2007, we will be heralding the introduction of an audio-meter based methodology, which measures analogue, digital, digital TV and Internet listening and we shall continue to work vigorously in the pursuit of this goal'.

De la Bedoyere points out that RAJAR is 'the only radio research body in the world to have tested both the Arbitron Portable People Meter and the GfK Radiocontrol watch. This exhaustive research coupled with our on-going consultation with subscribers and stakeholders is now bearing fruit and in a way which is extremely positive for the radio industry'.

RAJAR will review the findings of its industry-wide consultation exercise in just over a month's time, and will then spend 2-3 months running validation and compliance tests for new versions of the PPM and the Radiocontrol watch, plus a new player, the Eurisko Electronic Media Monitor (EMM) developed in Italy. Further fieldwork tests are planned for the first 6 months of 2005.

The tender process will run from April to September 2005, but the extent to which electronic methodology is used will be dependent on both the final stage of the consultation exercise and the results of the tests. The successful supplier will then prepare for a period of parallel runs with the diary and the selected audio-meter, expected to start in April 2006.

TalkSport boss Kelvin MacKenzie, who is suing RAJAR for alleged loss of revenue over its audience figures for his station, called the length of the proposed process 'preposterous' and 'torturously slow as a tortoise'. Other leading figures from radio have taken a more stoical view of the wait required, stressing the need to ensure accuracy and conceding that such a massive change will take time to implement properly.

Details of tests conducted to date are available on the RAJAR web site at www.rajar.co.uk

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.