egta insight No 3

Page 13

and uses Bluetooth-enabled beacons (rather than

GPS) to establish the location in which the panel-

list is listening, for instance in the car, at work or

at home.

The

Czech

audience measurement company ME-

DIAN has carried out tests of its adMeter single

source meter technology, measuring radio, TV,

Internet, mobile and desktop. The methodology

uses a smartphone app and desktop computer

software. Broadcast content is measured by au-

dio matching, which provides good granularity and

second-by-second data, and Internet behaviour

by URL access detection. The trials are designed

to deliver data on media consumption in order to

allow the optimisation of advertising and cross-

media planning.

Future plans for MEDIAN include increasing the

panel size, measuring smartphone app usage, pi-

loting print measurement via barcode scanning

and increasing the detail of online advertising

measurement.

In 2003,

Belgium

became one of the first countries

to introduce a PPM panel, with TNS Media under

licence from Arbitron. PPM has not been used on

a commercial basis in the country, and it was used

– primarily internally – until May 2015 to deliver

insights into programming and other issues. A new

radio audience measurement regime is expected

to be introduced in Belgium following a tender pro-

cess.

/ / Conclusions

Radio audience measurement continues to be an

area of testing, evaluating and innovating. There

are no imminently planned major changes to cur-

rency RAM that the authors of this report are aware

of; the next phase for measurement evolution is

likely to take place in the online audio space audio,

including the combination of radio and online audio

data, in the coming years. This, along with the cur-

rent discussion taking place in egta’s Online Audio

Taskforce around audio trading across digital and

terrestrial platforms, will be the subject of an egta

report in the coming months.

To date, electronic radio measurement has been

tested widely but implemented in only a handful

of countries around the world. Whilst debate – of-

ten quite fierce in the US – continues to take place

about the effectiveness of using meters to mea-

sure radio and audio, there are to date no instances

of electronic measurement being replaced by de-

clarative methodologies, suggesting that their per-

formance is at least adequate.

One can conclude that neither declarative nor

passive measurement methodologies are perfect

and that different markets have different charac-

teristics, meaning that there is no one-size-fits-

all solution. The careful and thorough testing and

evaluation carried out both in markets that have

implemented electronic measurement and those

that have not done so to date, such as France, the

UK and the Netherlands in particular, demonstrate

the importance of ensuring that the conditions and

technologies adopted are fit for purpose. These

and other markets also provide a wealth of bench-

marking information that may be of value to any

radio broadcasters considering a change to their

methodology.

/ / References

1. Harker, R. (16 August, 2010) Lost in Translation:

PPM Missing Listening.

Radio InSights

2. Nielsen - Radio Market Survey Population,

Rankings & Information. Spring 2015

3. LeClair, M. (14 April, 2014) Trouble in PPM Town:

The Thrill Is Gone.

Radio World

4. Inside Radio (10 April, 2015) Nielsen Puts Voltair

Box to the Test.

Inside Radio

5. Gallup Radio-Meter (Denmark) week 2-3 2008