RAJAR set for electronic listener research

RAJAR, the radio audience measurer, is to test electronic audience research auditing next year for the first time.

The organisation, which is jointly owned by the BBC and the Commercial Radio Companies Association, is to give some of its panel of listeners wristwatchand pager-style meters, which pick up signals unique to each radio station.

These signals are logged by the meters and can be downloaded via the Internet.

But the equipment costs up to &£10,000 a unit, and RAJAR says it will have to discuss with radio companies how much they are willing to invest long-term in the technology.

RAJAR surveys the listening habits of 3,000 people every week. They use diaries to log their listening habits.

Starting in January next year, RAJAR will look at whether the electronic meters are reliable and whether users are comfortable wearing and understanding them. It will also try to establish if the meters can be used to measure digital radio and Internet listening.

The first stage of the trial will take up to a year, and will be followed by research to compare listening figures from diaries with listening figures taken from the meters.

Radio Advertising Bureau managing director Justin Sampson backs the move. “From an advertising point of view it’s important that the technology used is the most advanced on the market,” he says.

RAJAR will also introduce schemes to target listening habits of ethnic groups and 15to 24-year-olds from next year.