New Chairman at RAJAR
October 29 2002
RAJAR Limited (Radio Joint Audience Research) in the UK has appointed Lord Gordon of Strathblane, CBE as its new chairman. He is to succeed John Whitney, who retires this December after 10 years in the post.
Lord Gordon (66) is currently chairman of Scottish Radio Holdings plc (since 1996). He began his career in the radio industry in 1972 when he joined a group applying for the local radio licence in Glasgow and became the first managing director of Radio Clyde Ltd, the third UK commercial radio station to be established.
Meanwhile, RAJAR has moved into the third phase of its audiometer testing programme. In September 2002 RAJAR launched a six month test of the US manufactured Arbitron Portable People Meter (PPM). The test is monitoring the listening habits of a panel of 300 London households to 32 radio services from a mix of platforms including analogue, digital, satellite TV and Internet. A special signal, which is identified by the Arbitron PPM but is inaudible to the listener, has been encoded into each of the service's broadcasts.
These latest tests are to ascertain:
- what editing rules should be applied to the data in order to minimise misattribution and bridge gaps (missing minutes) in data capture?
- are the interviewer instructions and scripts correct?
- is the panel being managed correctly?
- incentives - are they set at the correct level?
- how quickly will respondents leave the panel?
- how well do respondents comply with the task of wearing meters over an extended period?
- what are the key differences in the data captured when compared to diary data?
- do meters give us more accuracy, a different kind of accuracy, or both?
Similar tests are scheduled to begin shortly on the Swiss developed Radiocontrol wristwatch. According to Jane O'Hara, managing director, RAJAR 'We have reached the third stage of our 15 month test programme on the two audiometers. During the first eight months of testing RAJAR has undertaken extensive tests on the meters including acoustic, placement, compliance, breakfast listening and qualitative tests. They have been painstaking and exhaustive but they have paid off and as a result we understand a great deal more about meters and how they work. Now we need to discover how complete and robust the data they capture is to ascertain whether it can be trusted as a reliable and stable currency. This latest stage of testing, launched in September, should begin to complete the picture for us on how these two audiometers function and whether they can fulfil the exacting needs of the UK radio industry. Once we have the final results we should be in a position to advise on the best way forward and to move on to the next stage.'
All articles 2006-22 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas unless otherwise stated.
