Our overview of the methodologies used around the world to analyze radio listening continues. distance France Let’s talk about the UK today. Where – despite all expectations – the weekly diary is used and the automation consists in assembling it via mobile, rather than the classic pen and paper.

rag

Rajar (Radio Common Audience Research) is the UK’s official audience survey body, created and operated by BBC e Radio Center (the entity that aggregates and represents commercial broadcasts). The data this provides is Currency Used to plan, buy and sell advertising space on commercial radio.

The Commission

The Rajgarh Board has three members elected by the BBC, three by RadioCentre, and one by IPA (International Publishers Association) and ISBA Controller (which must comply with or International Association of Bayesian analysis or more likelyCombined British Advertisers Association).

United Kingdom: Three hundred stations analyzed

Data from more than 300 stations is currently being analyzed, including 55 from the BBC alone. These are stations with a regular OFCOM license that explicitly request metering.

painting

painting (“a sample”) currently consists of about 100,000 individuals over the age of 14 who fill out weekly radio memos. However, data is also available for the 10-14 year range.

Specific analyzes of sparsely populated areas

Specific methods of panel selection are envisioned in order to ensure that important data exist even for the smallest stations (or rather, with a sparsely populated coverage area). For example, for a station whose service area is estimated to be 300,000 inhabitants, the board consists of 500 adults, who are required to fill in diaries for 12 months.
Nationally, on the other hand, groups of 25,000 adults are used for a period of my quarter (3 months). In all cases, the service area is determined by the stations themselves; The entire territory is divided into 550 non-overlapping regions.

A diary

The scheme of the diary is general, it is shown above: the name of the stations is not found as it was compiled by listeners, at the top of columns 1 … 12.
In the rules for compiling a diary, it is expressly specified that it must be filled out during listening (and not, for example, at the end of the day). An hourly grid divided into quarters of an hour.

Five minutes minimum

The broadcaster considers that he was listened to in a quarter of an hour if the listening time itself is more than four minutes (If they spend at least 5 minutes listening to a station during this time segment).

Brixi

We note how this definition differs greatly from French ACPM, where only 30 seconds of listening is required.

Newspapers and podcasts

Finally, information is requested about newspapers (if any) read and podcasts listened, but we have not found a way to download this last information.

reveal

let’s analyze Table related to national networks, first quarter of 2020, considering two networks specializing in contemporary music. We see that BBC Radio 1 (FM/DAB/IP), out of 55,032,000 listeners (adults over 14) reaching a total of 8,915,000 listeners per week (at least once, at least for 5 minutes), equals 16% of Universe.

Hello my sister

Radio 1 has a 100% digital little sister launched in 2001, BBC Radio 1 Xtra. Under the official name 1Xtra from the BBC, the station reached a total of 986,000 listeners with a percentage of 2%.

Virgins vs ex-virgins

Let’s analyze two interesting competitors: Absolute Radio, a station that inherited the network (AM / FM) from Virgin Radio – changing brands, but maintaining a certain continuity in the selection of music – and the reborn Virgin Radio, which mainly operates only via DAB and IP.

Absolute vs Virgo

Absolute Radio Network recorded 2,416.000 listeners at 4%, while Virgin Radio recorded a total of 1,496,000 listeners at 3%. It is clear that it is not possible to compare only on the basis of distribution technology (since the two broadcasters have completely different histories and clearly different connectors), but it certainly does not appear that the high costs of AM and FM infrastructure lead to significant competitive advantages.

How many heads does the listener have?

Regarding the duration of listening, we can see in the table how the English language distinguishes the duration in the “per head“e”for every listener(for each person and for each listener).
At first we were confused (each listener obviously has only one head), but reading the definition the ratio is clearer: by head we mean “in the total populationFor the listenerIn total who listen to at least 5 minutes”. We just note how the average listening time for a station by those who don’t listen to it tends to be somewhat predictable.

average listening time

Anyway, we consider the second of the two scales: lOn average listening time for every listener he is It was 7.6 hours for the Absolute and 6 hours for the Virgin.

Up and down

The stake for each platform is very interesting – given the role the UK plays as a European leader in DAB adoption: a (slow) decline in analog listening and a diminishing (albeit limited) of that across DAB and across television. Who earns? Obviously online/app. An additional display of the appropriate place to focus and promote efforts for various radio brands.

In the UK too, radio is losing youth

Finally, we highlight a table that seems interesting to us: it is the growth (or lack) of those who claim to use a mobile device (phone or tablet) as a listening tool. Well, in the face of a steady average increase over the period, the dominant sector, 15-24 years, peaked in 2016 to begin a slow decline whose slope has been accentuated from 2018 onwards.

worrying drop

Except for the hypothesis that this segment of the population has stopped looking for entertainment via mobile devices, we believe we can come to only one conclusion: the competition for a radio station is no longer the competing broadcaster, but other online services. And in a world where Netflix puts streaming games in the middle of movie and series titles, it seems even more alarming. (MHB for NL)