The Broadcast Research Council of South Africa (BRC) recently released the January – June 2017 Radio Audience Measurement (RAM) data. The January to June 2017 sample comprised 14 899 households and 31 178 individuals, of which 39 commercial and public broadcasting stations and 269 community stations were measured.
Catching Radio Data Waves
Realities in radio listenership
The data indicated that radio penetration remained strong with a 90% weekly and 73% daily reach.
Listeners are loyal with 63% listening to only one station.
There is still a heavy amount of time dedicated to the medium with an average listening time of close on 4 hours and 50% of listeners tune in for more than 20 hours per week.
Some new developments included the incorporation of programme insights, which show general radio preferences as opposed to station specific preferences.
Socio Economic Measures (SEMs) will be available for use on the BRC RAM data to be released in November.
Notes on BRC sample
The sample is designed to be representative of the country on a national and provincial basis.
It does however have a bias to metropolitan areas (60% of participants were located in metro areas, 20% in urban areas and 20% in rural areas).
As a result, findings are weighted back to be representative of the population as a whole.
As always, a key variable with each release is the measurement of data stability, a measure that was clearly illustrated in this release. Weighting efficiency increased to 89%, showing that the sample is highly reflective of the population.
From review to refine
With the amount already achieved since the first release of BRC data and CEO of the BRC, Clare O’Neil’s public commitment to “review, examine, refine”.
We look forward to things to come in the November release.