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Broadcast Radio Has A Future |
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14-May-2010
THE RATINGS: Online Radio Still A Clear Winner In Radio Ratings Battle
The founders of IADR+ (Internet Assisted Digital Radio) today released results of a survey undertaken to coincide with Survey #3 of the traditional Nielson Radio Ratings and in response to recent claims by Commercial Radio Australia that half a million Australians regularly listened to DAB+ radio.
Ryan Maguire, a spokesman for IADR+ said:
"Our results come in real time from people accessing our content. Each time a person accesses a IADR+ server a log of which station they access is anonymously made. Also the length of time they spend listening is noted.
I'm not suggesting that people don't listen to FM radio or DAB+ necessarily, but I am very curious just where these numbers they keep claiming are coming from when a similar capacity available to us on IADR+ is either not available to them on traditional FM or not used on DAB+".
Traditional FM radio has always relied upon people to fill in paper diaries, a system which has in more recent years come under intense criticism in the US due to its inaccuracy. Its proposed replacement, the PPM or "Person People Meter", has come under violent legal attack also due to its initial results being very depressing for what were formerly thought to be FM market leaders.
"We are of course pleased to see that once again Austereo at least had the insight to concede the pride of place internet based entertainment has for Australians albeit they only concede it is for their own programming - not the level playing field that IADR+ provides".
Radio using the internet began as a hobby for web geeks about a decade ago and has flourished into millions of professional 24/7 radio stations world wide. Stations that now employ thousands of people formerly from the FM radio world.
"Those of us who have promoted IADR+ from the beginning, when DAB+ in Australia was handed to a small minority of vested interests, see the success of this recent survey as a milestone.
We have suffered the purposeful denigration by Traditional FM radio for many years which has affected our advertising potential to their advantage - we are now seeing this change in real dollar terms. Advertisers are now getting smarter and coming to our provable audience, rather than the maybe's that have traditionally existed with FM Radio advertising budget".
This comes as no surprise, it seems Australia is just slow to catch up with international trends. Each years hundreds of FM stations internationally are handing their high cost FM licenses back to the government in favour of a solid web-based audience.
The jury is still out on DAB+ digital radio: worldwide things are not looking very promising - the only markets where it has shown much success (for example in the UK) are where a multitude of new operators have been encouraged. Unlike Australia's version of Digital Radio, these are indeed new stations each produced by independent entities not multiple streams from a handful of operators.
http://www.ausradiosearch.com
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