Radio executives have suggested that radio measurement data may be flawed. One emphatically told AdNews that it was time to take a leaf out of the newspaper industry's book and develop a new currency.
Guy Dobson, chief content officer at Southern Cross Austereo, made the former point. He said that the audience drop-off across its top ranking stations in Sydney and Melbourne (2DayFM Sydney and Fox FM in Melbourne) was due to a "statistical error".
He did not attribute the audience declines (2DayFM - one percentage point to 7.7% market share, FoxFM - 1.1 percentage point to 8.9%) to any other factors. He insisted that the numbers would rise next survey. Everything else was "copacetic", he said.
Despite watching 2GB consolidate the top spot in Sydney (13.5% share), Macquarie Radio executive Jack Singleton went a step further. While people tended to question the data when their numbers dropped off, he said it was "time to research the researchers."
"Ratings cannot fluctuate that much. The audience cannot fluctuate by that much. [The radio industry] needs to do something like EMMA (the new newspaper readership metric that has suggested much more people are reading papers than under the Roy Morgan metric).
"It's not reality. Can you remember what you listened to a week ago?"
However, he said Macquarie would not fund a new currency "because we know what reality is based on sales. Everything else is crap."
SMI data published last week suggested that radio advertising was up 12% overall to $45.7million in July 2013 compared to July 2012 due largely to election spend, while Deloitte figures put the market up 9% to $57 million. That suggests up to 25% of the radio advertising market comes direct rather than via agencies. However, Singleton said that 60% of 2GB's clients were direct.
Whether election coverage had led to talk radio share increases and contributed to drop-offs at some of the FM stations was debatable, said Singleton. "It works both ways. People what to know what is going on but you can get overkill. People know who they are going to vote for."
DMG Radio’s group program director, Paul Jackson, disagreed. He said that political leaders should have done "much more" in engaging voters across radio channels, "particularly the younger audiences".
According to the Australian Electoral Commission, while there has been a rise of 25,000 18 to 24-year olds registering to vote since the 2010 federal election, an estimated 400,000 failed to enrol. An estimated 1.22 million remain unenrolled across all age groups.
ARN’s national content director, Duncan Campbell, said that the survey had been skewed towards AM by the election.
"It's an election book. The AM listening audience has impacted FM listeners, especially across more adult demographics" He had hoped it would skew the other way. 'We had not expected the impact we have seen. We thought there might be election fatigue. Perhaps with [the many election issues impacting families], they have headed over to talk. We hope it doesn't follow into the next book. Hopefully people will get tired of it and audiences come back."
While overall it was "not a great survey" in terms of ARN's result, Campbell disagreed that there was any need for a new data currency.
"I've worked with the diary system for 30 years and understand its nuances. No survey is 100% accurate, you get some anomalies but I don't think it is right for industry to lean back and pin [a poor result] on that. We need to see what happens when the election washes out."
Commercial Radio Australia chief executive Joan Warner dismissed criticism of the measurement system, currently provided by Nielsen but soon to switch to GFK.
“Australia already has one of the most robust and reliable radio audience measurement systems in the world," she said. "The new partnership with GFK will bring even further improvements to this world class system. We are also pleased that we have had overwhelmingly positive feedback from clients and agencies since the announcement of the new system and the new provider."
Nielsen ceases to provide the radio industry's audience data this year. GFK's new audience measurement system commences 1 January 2014. It will use an online and e-diary system and is currently in trials in parallel with the Nielsen system. A new 5,000 strong audience panel will also be set up to track audience behaviour.
Nielsen said it would continue to measure radio data as part of its cross platform data for clients.
The numbers: AM talk shows streak ahead as FM leaders' grip loosens
Sydney's top ranking radio stations have remained unchanged since the previous audience survey. AM remains the big hitter with 2GB increasing its lead in Sydney to 13.5% market share. In Melbourne, 3AW also took 13.5%.
ABC remains the number two station across Sydney and Melbourne.
In FM categories, SCA's 2DAY FM kept its top spot in Sydney but dropped a full percentage point to 7.7% market share. Nova96.9 closed the gap slightly in second place.
Melbourne FM was a similar picture. SCA's FOXFM dropped 1.1 share points yet led the category with 8.9%.
ARN's 97.3 regained the number one FM position in Brisbane after losing out to DMG's Nova 106.9 last survey. Nova's 0.8 point drop and a marginal increase for 97.3 retored the old order.
ARN's Mix 102.3 maintained its number one FM position in Adelaide, with 15.9% of the market. Despite this, it's also the station that has reported the largest decrease in audience share, dropping 0.9 points. This decrease was evident across all its key demographics except 18 to 24-year olds, which jumped 6.2 points.
In Perth, Dobson's prediction last survey that Mix 94.5 would reclaim the top spot came true. However, it was a joint first with rival 96FM also holding12.1% market share.
The ABC's 6JJJ was the overall leader in Perth, taking 13.0% of audience the audience, up 2.2 share points. No other station (across all five markets) recorded such overall growth this survey.
Download the Nielsen Metro Radio Survey.
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