Cell Phone stronger than pager-like device for monitoring Radio Listening.

The general population is far more likely to agree to participate in a research study using a cell phone than a pager-like device. That’s the finding of a telephone survey commissioned by The Media Audit/Ipsos via a national study of 1,000 randomly selected adults conducted last week (July 11 to 17) as part of The Media Audit/Ipsos’s bid for the US radio ratings contract.

“This is a landmark study.” said Bob Jordan president of The Media Audit. “To our knowledge, no study like this has been done before. The research shows adults are 3.5 times more likely to agree to participate in a panel study using a cell phone (66%) versus 18% who would agree to carry a pager.

These findings coincide with common sense and put a dimension to what most people already believe.” said Jordan. “The cell phone is an integral part of people’s lives today. The less disruptive the monitoring device, the more inclined people are to cooperate. Greater cooperation leads to more reliable and accurate research. Of the monitoring devices that are being used today, cell phones are the least intrusive to our life styles. This is why we say the cell phone is the simple, common sense solution for media measurement today and for tomorrow.”

“These findings are very significant for the radio industry as the monitoring device has a direct impact on the results.” commented Jim Higginbotham, Chairman and head of research at The Media Audit. “The monitoring device is one of the key foundations to good research. The media industry understands the principle that the monitoring device impacts the results. That’s why the industry wishes to drop the diary in preference to electronic measurements. There’s concern that the diary, as a collection instrument, is adversely affecting radio ratings results. For astute researchers, this kind of
scrutiny and concern also extends to the different devices that can be used for electronic ratings.” “The correct monitoring device will lead to higher cooperation rates and less sample bias. Better cooperation leads to more representative samples. And this means a more reliable and accurate reflection of the market.” continued Higginbotham.

“For example take a look at the tough to reach demos of males, young people and ethnic segments of the market. These are major demos for radio and historically tough to reach via diaries. Based on this study, it can be seen that they are tough demos for pager-like devices as well. The research study shows cell phones are 3 to 4 times more likely than a pager-like device in gaining cooperation from these tough to reach demos.”

“With the comparatively high cooperation rates indicated by this study, it appears that cell phones are far more likely to deliver a more representative and reliable sampling of listeners.” Said Higginbotham.

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