Rajar Desperate To Show Internet Helps, Not Hinders Radio
UK online radio grew from 8.1 million weekly listeners in November to 9.4 million through April and May, according to Rajar‘s latest questionable poll (pdf). The number who have ever listened grew from 12 million to 14.5 million.
Listen-again radio services got 1.8 million listeners per week though, in a typical injection of confidence, Rajar said three-quarters of them listened to no less radio as a result. Indeed, half of them are listening to shows they wouldn’t otherwise have heard
Podcasts got 3.7 million weekly listeners (up from 1.87 million), with listeners spending just over an hour a week listening. Surprising as it may seem for a paradigm that has failed to make an impact with mainstream audiences, four fifths of folk subscribe to feeds rather than play direct from web pages.
And, funnily enough, Rajar also credits podcasts with “a marginally positive effect on live radio listening” – 15 percent of respondents listen to more since discovering podcasts and 53 percent have discovered new shows.
Whilst the study, a follow-up to February’s debut survey on the topic, was conducted by Ipsos Mori, it used a sample of just 863 people – most of whom were already Rajar measurement respondents and who had already indicated they are online radio converts. As it’s not stated, we also assume the “podcasts” studied were those produced only by radio organisations…
In other words, the study was somewhat skewed and is an attempt by Rajar to show it’s modernising, despite having ruled out electronic data gathering methods in favour of sticking with the humble diary entry until 2009.
(Photo: Dan Taylor, some rights reserved)
Dear Mr. Andrews,
I would like to comment on your article on our Podcasting and Listen via the Internet survey.
On the main RAJAR survey we ask respondents if they ever listen to the radio via the internet and also if they use podcasts. As you would expect this population is growing each quarter and amounted to 15,223,000 adults 15+ at the time of our last published results in Q1 2008 (the total adult 15+ population being 50,334,000).
As explained in the introduction of the report (attached), we went back to respondents from this group to ask them to complete an online survey specifically about podcasting and listening via the internet. 863 people took part, and were weighted back to this 15.2m population. This means that unlike many online surveys we are not saying that the attributes from our online panel applies to the whole adult population, we are simply asking more questions to an online group on their claimed online habits, using an online tool.
The non-online group (35 million adults) is treated as non-podcast users and non-internet radio listeners, and any result on all adults mentioned in our report takes this into account. In the report, we have always been careful to state whether results apply to “all adults”, “all who use podcasts”, “all who listen via the internet”, “all who use listen again” etc…
Also, as you can see on page 12 of the report, the podcasts studied were all podcasts, not just podcasts from radio organisations.
It is important to our subscribers to understand how these new ways of audio delivery impact on traditional listening and the questionnaire was designed with this in mind.
Best wishes,
Christel Lacaze
Research Manager
RAJAR Ltd