‘Expert Witness Test’ in US Radio.

Bob Jordan, President of The Media Audit announced the schedule of the first ever “expert witness test” on electronic radio
measurement in America. The test will take place in Houston in May with test results shared with the industry later in the month.

“We’re moving thoughtfully fast and I’m pleased to say we’re right on schedule” said Jordan in making the announcement. “.

The radio and advertising community are on the verge of making a major decision that will be a sea change in the way radio and media is planned, bought and sold here in America. We understand we need to do tests each step of the way. We believe that an expert witness test is mandatory and we will be the first to do such a test.”

“Good decisions are based on solid research and we’re focused on developing the most solid media research for the radio and ad communities to make the best decision. And that means to help them develop a thorough understanding of what electronic measurement means.” said Jordan.

“As a research company serving more than 650 radio stations and 250 plus ad agencies, we have a responsibility to do a thorough evaluation of all the factors that affect the research results of electronic media measurement” continued Jordan. “And then openly and transparently share the results of those studies with the radio and ad communities. That includes the MRC, Media Ratings Council.”

Test Purpose

“No research methodology is perfect” said Jim Higginbotham, Chairman and head of research at The Media Audit. “Our objective is to produce surveys that fairly and accurately reflect radio listening levels.”

“We believe there are “listening holes” when radio listening is being done but the respondent doesn’t have the meter with them. For example do people carry the meter with them when they get cleaned up in the morning? And mornings are prime time in radio. If prime time isn’t being monitored correctly it can have a major impact on the effective use of the medium.

Consider as well the Black and Hispanic communities and their use of the meters. We have some solutions that we’ll want to discuss with the industry.

Mechanics

In explaining the mechanics of the study Higginbotham said “We will assess radio listening through 3 modes:

-The Smart Cell Phone

-A Telephone 24 Hour recall

-A 7 Day Diary

A couple dozen people, “friends and family”, will be asked to participate in this first study. We use friends and family because we are looking for them to follow directions precisely. We will ask these ‘expert witnesses” to carry the Smart Cell Phone meter in the same way we will ask the panelists to carry the meter. In addition we will ask them to record in a diary exactly what radio listening they are doing. In addition we will contact them on various days and do a 24 hour recall of what radio listening they did.

The results of each observation will be compared. We expect we’ll get a high degree of correlation. But where the data doesn’t correlated we’ll do additional probing of the participants.

With these insights we start to define listening holes.

Results

“I should emphasize” continued Higginbotham “this test does not involve any calculations or ratings. We just want to define when there is radio listening and the meter isn’t picking it up. Once we have defined the “listening holes” we will discuss a variety of solutions with an industry committee of media researchers, planners, buyers as well as general market and ethnic radio broadcasters.”

For more information at http://www.TheMediaAudit.com