Radio listenership study raises frowns

However, most media planners welcome TAM’s Diary method

TAM’s Diary method of tracking radio listernership recently drew debate across the radio industry. A study by the Media Research Users Council (MRUC) adds some grist to the mill.

It says 85% of ‘Diary’ respondents listening to radio misreported or wrongly recorded listenership.

On the other hand, respondents to Diary’s predecessor, Day After Recall (DAR) recalled higher close-to-actual listening, the MRUC study said.

Therefore, with the launch of TAM’s new tool industry got divided and some started lobbying for DAR and the rest for the Diary Method.

L V Krishnan, CEO, TAM, said, “I have not seen the MRUC research. However, I feel that every research should try and address the questions of its audience. If it is successful in doing that then the research is considered credible. It can come only from a continuous panel-led Diary Method.”

Diary remains the preferred instrument in 95% of the global markets.

Thomas Abraham, COO, Red FM, said, “We partnered TAM in building this new methodology. And this is the only way we can encourage advertisers to spend more money on radio.”

Apurva Purohit, CEO, Radio City, concurs. “Diary is the global standard measurement methodology and it will bring more accurate measurement.”

The MRUC study was conducted in Mumbai on a sample of 1,270 respondents in the 20-39 age group belonging to SEC A, B C and D cities.

The results reveal that in both the Diary as well as DAR modules, more than 50% of FM listening is on mobile phones.
In both modules, listenership for FM radio takes place primarily ‘in-home’ followed by ‘in-travel’.

The norm of ‘weekly’ Diary collection has lower accuracy compared with ‘daily’ Diary collection. Daily Diary collection did not approximate DAR data despite the same time lag in data collection for the two methodologies.

Listenership according to Diary is higher than DAR — almost 3 times higher at peak times. Diary reports twice the listenership of DAR.

But on Coincidental checks, 85% of Diary respondents listening to radio misreported or wrongly recorded listenership, while DAR respondents recalled higher close-to-actual listening.

At the time of the coincidental check, of those not listening to radio, Diary respondents  claimed twice as many listening incidences compared with DAR.

So MRUC concluded that the Diary method reports higher listenership across time bands but at the cost of accuracy.

The DAR methodology, though not entirely accurate, scores significantly in capturing accurate listenership behaviour, MRUC said.

Anand Chakravarthy, V-P, marketing, Big FM, said there are serious flaws in the MRUC research.

“Most importantly the research didn’t include people below 19, which is the fastest growing radio target group. MRUC commissioned TNS — a market research agency — to do the study for them. I was really surprised to know this because globally TNS is the biggest propagator of the Diary method."

"How can it suddenly say that Diary won’t work in India? Everywhere in the world the Diary method has taken at least two months to settle down. The first set of RAM (radio audience measurement) report has not been released despite the fact that it has already been gathered. But TAM wants to be more accurate and so it is still waiting.”

Media planners remain supportive of Diary for two reasons.

Diary can measure exact number of people who listened to a particular radio station and the exact time spent on a channel. Also, it is only through the Diary method the comparable data of radio channels can be obtained.

As far as DAR is concerned - the measurement is done based on top of mind brand recall value of a person.
Therefore, only certain players get highlighted all the time.

Media planners also say that DAR needs to be done for different reasons but for measurement of listenership they are vouching only for the Diary method with the hope that this method is the interim method to electronic method.