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RAJAR Loses Watch
UK radio audience measurement body RAJAR has announced the result of its Audiometer Validation Test which took place in November 2004. The Arbitron PPM and the Eurisko Media Monitor have been selected for further fieldwork tests, while the GfK/Telecontrol MediaWatch has, for the time being at least, dropped out of the running.
The test examined how well the audiometers could identify up to 33 different radio services (both music and speech-based) broadcast in 20 rooms of a North London hotel. All three audiometers were subjected to the same listening conditions over the course of a weekend in November 2004. Criteria included the ability to identify all formats equally, whether music or speech, against a variety of extraneous background noises, when played at differing volume levels and regardless of whether the wearers were stationary or in motion.
RAJAR MD Sally de la Bedoyere said the decision was based 'solely on the needs of the UK market, where monitoring AM, FM and digital broadcasting is highly complex'. She continued 'The Arbitron PPM and the Eurisko Media Monitor meters identified very similar numbers of listening sessions... despite using different techniques. Their level of correct identification was in line with that anticipated when designing the test'.
She stressed that RAJAR would be happy to review the situation as regards the MediaWatch, in future. GfK is currently making adjustments to its editing software and increasing the frequency of data collection from three to six times per minute.
A summary of the test conditions and of the performance of the three monitors is as follows:
RAJAR Ltd (Radio Joint Audience Research) is a company wholly owned by the Commercial Radio Companies Association (CRCA) and by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), and incorporating representation from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) on its Technical Management Committee. It is online at www.rajar.co.uk
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