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Ever filled out a Rajar diary?
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Just wondering whether anyone on DS has completed or even seen a Rajar diary?
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[Deleted User]
Posts: 121 [Deleted User]
Posts: 121 [Deleted User]
Posts: 121
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The chap who delivered it had earlier knocked on someone else's door, but they weren't in (this was on a Sunday at about 5.00pm), so my neighbour was asked. The chap who handed over the diary asked him what stations he listened to, then put stickers with the station names on it.
I've filled in 3 over the years in Argyll and Yorkshire. I was offered one in London but as I was MD of a station in the area I declined. However, they then offered it to a neighbour of mine who proceeded to help us increase our audience share locally.
"Most people only have two or three" he said.
I barely listened to anything during the period she left the survey - very unusually for me as I usually listen to hours a day. (I'd lost my trusty portable on the tube the week before and my mother only had a horribly tinny shower radio from Next which I found difficult to hear).
Anyway I forgot about the survey until just before the lady was due to return and for some reason (partly idotic mischief, I must confess) I basically made it up. Still don't know why I didn't just admit I hadn't really listened to anything!
BTW, I'm not trying to undermine the accuracy of RAJAR. I'm not sufficiently knowledgeable about the science of it to comment. I'm sure they factor in this sort of thing.
SNAP!
I didn't realise it was Rajar at first so selected everything I'd heard of even if I didn't listen
Yep, it was pioneered here by the outfit that was running TalkSport/Radio/UK (whatever it was called) at the time.
It apparently consisted of a device worn on the wrist, that recorded any radio station listened to, then could decipher which station it was, in the same way that Shazam can work out whatever any record is that you play it.
Rather unsurprisingly, this device suddenly proved that TalkSomethingorother wasn't the the least listened to National station (as RAJAR said it was) and was, in fact, the biggest station in the UK, by a country mile.
AFAIK, nobody else ever took up this method of recording audience, and nobody ever believed that Talk........was the most listened to station in the UK.
RAJAR is meant to be that random, but so are it's results, as a result
I've spent hours pouring over detailed RAJAR reports, but they don't always make much sense, when compared to other stats that the industry use.
For example, I once presented a show, at the same time, six consecutive days a week; for five days, I had the highest RAJARs the station had ever known in that time slot, but on the sixth day, I regularly got an asterisk (under 100 listeners).
The only thing that changed was the music (general pop during the week, party style on the sixth day) so we reached the conclusion that the audience liked me, but not the party tunes; except there's another stat that claims only a certain percentage of your listeners will ever phone you up.
If you extrapolated that stat, I had nearly three times as many listeners on party night, as I had on any other night of the week, because I got three times as many calls, even though the other nights were designed to be more interactive.
RAJAR is nothing like an exact science; at best, you should only use it to detect trends, over a period of time.
The upside is, it's just as inaccurate for everybody else, so it's a reasonable comparator.
For example, in my area of Bournemouth, how many people would have a diary? Even if, say, 100 people at any given time in this area had one of this books, it'd still be ridiculously inaccurate.
I'm my 28 years in this area I've never heard of or met anyone with one of those diaries.
I just see it as a bit of a shame, for small local radio stations at least, that some of them may well be underpricing their advertising slots due to these totally inaccurate figures.
So how would you measure it Sam?
I know other ways have been looked at but recall is stil the most accurate way of doing it. Radio stations all programme their stations according to how rajar works and stations that use certain stratagies do see an increase in their figures.
The whole industry is looking for a more accurate system but so far we can't find one.
Incidentally I've never been given a diary, nor heard of anyone who has.
A bespoke DAB/FM/AM/INTERNET radio that sends data on what the person is listening to for how long, to Rajar HQ? I think it's technically feasible. The info could either be sent via a WIFI connection or the data could be extracted via a USB stick when the radio is returned. An an incentive, every person who takes part is eligible for a discount on a new DAB radio. And if they don't return the radio they get charged.
My idea, which possibly is far fetched - is simply to produce a mobile phone app which ran latently, and recorded and deciphered a radio station - as per the GfK (Kelvin Mackenzie) wristwatch idea.
No different to Shazam now on the iPhone, but instead, it uses the technology that GfK used.
But, archaic as the radio industry is, I expect this wouldn't happen. Do they even have online versions of these diaries or is it literally, you have a book, fill it in, and then carrier pigeon it back to RAJAR HQ??
OK, it's a long way form perfect, but so are other solutions. You may carry your mobile phone on you at all times, but I don't and my seventy year old mother doesn't, and neither of us have phones that can cope with apps.
My mother managed to lose the book before he came back to collect it, mind!
If there are 30,000 of these diaries across the county, I can imagine no more than 40?
What if, what if, no one, say put Fire radio or Heart Bournemouth on their diaries? Surely RAJAR wouldn't release a figure of zero?
Is the data solely based on these diaries or is there some kind of basic algorthym they use that they twin with the data received?
AFAIK, diaries are specific to the stations (although the people filling them in don't know that).
In the case of local Vs regional stations, the local stations will have diary drops concentrated on postcodes within their TSA, regionals will have diaries countywide, which means there could be some overlap.
The last time I was involved in this stuff, it was at a local station with a TSA of around 140000, when there were about 250 diaries in circulation, specific to us.
And yes, if a station registers a zero at any point, that's what the records will show (or, more accurately, an asterisk, denoting an audience of less than 100).
It should be really easy for me I only ever listen to Key 103 breakfast for half an hour in the mornings and 5 live drivetime for the same half hour on my way too and from work.
I will prob fill out the lot on Sunday night before the man comes back to collect it on Monday