Radio showmanship (Jan-Dec 1946)

Diary. It can be handled by mail or interview, and is capable of measuring the entire coverage area of any given station, including rural as well as urban radio homes in the group studied, and non-telephone as well as telephone homes. All hoins of the day can be covered. In a stirvey of this type, however, determining the distribution of sample is of primary importance in obtaining accurate results and should not be attempted without professional research guidance. The operation of a Listener Diary study consists of having a representative sample of radio families in the area to be surveyed, keep a quarter-hour by quarter-hour record, throughout the day, of the family's listening for a period of time, usually one week. This record permits the development of the usual type of ratings information and, in addition, supplies a large quantity of other data on day-to-day listening habits. THEORY INTO PRACTICE With these data at hand, a station manager and his program department can find w^hich of his programs are attracting large audiences and which of them are attracting only mediocre or poor audiences. He can also determine what his station's progiamming structure is doing in comparison with his competition. The diagnosis of a poor program can be aided materially by a study of the flow of atidience; where the listeners ttme from and where they tune to. Audience composition data wall show the appeal of the program to the various age and sex groups. Audience turn-over helps too. Since a majority of programs are broadcast in a series, the total number of listeners to any program (considered over a period of weeks or days) is obviously greater than the audience to a specific broadcast. The rate of audience increase for multiple programs over that of a single broadcast of the series can be an important consideration in deciding the relative merits of different time periods. In certain advertising campaigns the primary objective may be to reach a limit ed number of families day after day. In others the emphasis may be on reaching as many families as possible, even though these families are reached fewer times. Diary studies can help in deciding on a program to fit each type of campaign through the use of turn-over and the average number of days the average family hears the program. For the sales manager, the Diary not only supplies average daily ratings, but also weekly ratings on programs broadcast more than once a week. In addition, it supplies not only data on the niuiiber of families listening to a specific program, but also the number of persons listening to his programs, and whether they are men, women, adolescents or children. The ability to inform an advertiser of what he is getting in terms of atidiences is becoming increasingly necessary. The Diary fills those needs in a very satisfactory manner. liiARY studies generally are too expensive to do more frequently than once a year. Regardless, trend data may be established for the station's over-all operation, and frequently for individual programs as well, after a few years have elapsed. More frequent reports may be obtained by tise of the coincidental techniqtie. IT TAKES BOTH In summary, then, there are two items the station manager shoidd have in order to do a good research job for his station. Both of these will most likely be within the budget limits of the average station. They are: 1. Coverage data, to define the number and location of subscribers to the station, done throtigh the Broadcast Meastuement Btueati reports. 2. Listener data, preferably obtained from Diary studies because of the greater amount of information collected. After these data are obtained, there is no substitute for carefid sttidy of the findings and as careful application of the lessons learned to have the data rettu'n as much as possible on the investment. NOVEMBER, 1946 • 369 •