oes anyone keep a diary these days? With the explosion of the internet and subsequent erosion of so many traditional forms of recording and communicating information, it seems safe to assume that it’s a dying pastime. But, undeterred, the radio sector is soldiering on with its manual diary listener measurement system … for now. That in the digital age one of our most dominant forms of mass communication still relies on a manual diary system to gauge its popularity seems ironic. And although the Australian radio industry has set down a timetable this month for its long-awaited move to electronic audience measurement, it’s in no rush to make the switch.
The industry’s representative body, Commercial Radio Australia, last week invited research companies to tender for the commercial contract, presenting an opportunity to step up to the next phase of development in the way the medium is measured.
However, the CRA isn’t too eager to replace the diary system. Tendering businesses have been asked to include components that seek to “improve” the current paper-based system, and any “alternative approaches” would be considered as supplementary to the diary proposal.
The current contract, held by Nielsen Media Research (NMR), runs out at the end of 2008 but CRA chief Joan Warner says electronic measurement is unlikely to be introduced in the next tender.
“I think the diary method will be in use in the majority of countries until at least 2012,” Warner says. “Four years ago, there were two devices being pushed to us and now there is one with very little change to it and two new ones – one that we haven’t even laid eyes on.”
Warner admits the industry often “turned up the heat” on the CRA to introduce a less cumbersome barometer of radio consumption.
“The media agencies are trying to move us more quickly and what we are saying to them is ‘When we find a device that has been thoroughly tested that addresses the needs of our listeners that will give us valid results, cost-effectively, we will move’.”
She says a plethora of mobile phone and watch-style devices were being tested in Australia, Europe and the US.
“But there are problems with them,” Warner adds. “People refer to television, but with radio we need to measure not only in the home and also in the car, but at work and out and about, it’s not that simple. We are not convinced that the people (measured) are going to wear the device or take it with them everywhere, that they are not going to leave it in their bag or at home.
“The key point is once you have lost listening time with an electronic device, you never get it back. There are no rules like with the diary system that allows you to say ‘Yes I was listening at this time and I forgot but I can still write it down’.”
Warner also points out that any electronic method of measuring currently on the market would cost the industry at least three times as much as the diary to implement.
The CRA has invited six firms – Arbitron, Ipsos, incumbent Nielsen Media Research, Research International, Roy Morgan Research and Taylor Nelson Soffres – to pitch for the three-year contract.
It is expected some will combine online PDA or other electronic measurement systems with the paper diaries, but Mark Grunert, Ipsos media director, speaks for all tendering parties when he says that he is unable to discuss a commercial pitch.
“As much as we’d like to nobody is going to discuss the tender,” Grunert says.
Electronic measurement devices likely to be considered include an auto-encoding IPSOS product which uses mobile technology to capture and transmit signals. The Arbitron Personal People Meter – a pager-type device using a mic to capture broadcast codes and the Eurisko Media Monitor – another pager-type device that samples the sounds to which respondents are exposed. There is also the GFK Telecontrol Media Watch, which is designed to record exposure to radio, TV, cinema, posters and readership.
Nielsen’s People/Go meter will be presented to the CRA later this year, but is still under wraps. Grunert says a key plank of the electronic submissions was to “significantly raise the bar on previous years”.
“There is a real intent to see innovation and best practice brought to all the submissions so it isn’t a repeat of what has been seen in the past, but what is possible,” Grunert notes.
“We are in this new radio survey zone because a number of other countries are looking at electronic measurements and there is now some concrete technology that can be used.
“All of the devices currently out there for measuring radio have come out of the mobile phone technology in one form or another, so they have only been around for about eight years,” Grunert says.
Mindshare business director Nick Durrant claims it has been eight years too long.
“When you think about it, in this day and age, the way we measure radio is a bit laughable,” Durrant says.
He thinks electronic measurement would be more user friendly and provide a more accurate record for advertisers and agencies.
“Anything that reduces the ability of humans to make errors or be lazy is always a good thing and under the current system you are relying on memory,” Durrant adds, noting that ratings were a media agency's “life blood”.
“Our clients have the right to demand accountability for how their money is being spent with us and as an advertiser we have to look to improve ways we can do that for them.
“Ratings systems are one of them.”
While radio broadcasters claim to support digital measurement, there is also an unspoken fear that the end of the diary might result in lower recorded-listening figures as was experienced by the TV industry with the introduction of the people meters in 1991.
Austereo’s official stament was succinct: “Austereo supports the CRA’s approach to investigating new ratings survey methodology.”
But other industry players were less enthusiastic. “The Australian radio diary, in terms of methodology, is one of the most sophisticated in the world because we have a small population and a large geographical area,” one Sydney radio station spokesman says.
“It has been pretty dammed good and stood up to scrutiny over a lot of years. What the CRA is now asking is that we increase our costs with a measurement that will probably say that all the ratings fall in around the same place as they always have. We are happy to do that, but the industry will have to pick up the expense and that will passed onto advertisers.”
NMR carries out eight surveys a year in five metropolitan markets, three in Newcastle, two in the Gold Coast and Canberra and one in Wollongong. Tenders are due by mid-September.
NMR’s pool of listeners may yet, it seems, continue picking up their paper diaries for years to come, despite the digital revolution raging around them.
