RESEARCH DATA: A VITAL TOOL FOR BROADCAST SALES AND MARKETING

It will not be out of place to say that; what pen is to a journalist is what audience data is to a broadcast marketer. If this assertion is rightly so, it will be pretty difficult for a broadcast marketing executive to excel or succeed without having access to audience information. How do we get audience data? Of course, there is no other approach than research.

There are two main types of research-qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research involves the collection of information that explores the means and motives of the consumer. According to Ed Shane, author of Selling Electronic Media, “it measures the quality of the information rather than the number of people who feel or act a certain way”. The numbers side of research is qualitative. It measures quantity and is usually expressed in a ranking or rating order.

I tend to agree with Ed Shane who orates that qualitative data is more valuable than the quantitative because achieving the number one position in a market is not as important as knowing why the number one station became number one. Moreover, because of the proliferation of media offerings in the country, the audience whose attention is being sought is becoming increasingly fragmented; hence, the need to play down on numbers and probe deeper into specific demographic and psychographic factors that will help broadcasters and advertisers determine who is listening or viewing rather than just how many. James Fletcher in his Handbook of Radio and Television Broadcasting wrote: “….your client will demand more than ratings”.

Ed Shane corroborated this by asserting that “Being number one means nothing to the client if the audience that makes you number one does not buy the product your client sells”.
It should be clear though that achieving the number one position in a market, or attracting a mass market audience cannot be overlooked. This is why research agencies especially in the US, Canada, Europe and South Africa provide means for rating programmes and stations. Rating is the estimated percentage of the population that is listening to, or viewing an advertisement or a programme..

Two methods of rating have been in use for over two decades. The Nielsen Media Research Company in the United States provides television rating report by gathering information everyday from specified number of households, using an electronic Portable People Meter {PPM}. The PPM is a device installed on television sets of selected households, which instantaneously measures the viewing pattern of members of the households. It records who views, when, how and what programme is viewed.

The device is not however in use for collecting radio listening data. Arbitron Inc, a media and marketing research firm based in New York, USA, provides the radio equivalent of what Nielsen does for television. Rather than using the PPM, Arbitron utilizes the diary methodology to collect radio listening information. They send one diary to each member of selected households who are from 12 years of age. Respondents are expected to record in the diary among other things: station name, programme name, time of listening, where they listened; at home, in the car, at work or elsewhere.

In the US, Network stations develop qualitative audience research to arm their salespeople with data on the value of the audience to individual programmes. According to Ed Shane, some Radio and TV stations in local markets either conduct their own qualitative studies or subscribe to services like “Media Audit, Scarborough and Simmons to prove to clients that they have value beyond the ratings numbers.”

Qualitative research gives insight into the sociographic characteristics relating to income levels and social status; demographics, referring to age and gender; and psychographics, a measure of attitudes and lifestyle traits. If FRCN’s Network News audience consist of upper and medium income professionals, or high net-worth individuals as claimed in one of the station’s promos; it will not be proper for the producer or seller of cheap China laptops to advertise in the News because his message will be received by the wrong audience. This again underscores the significance of qualitative data as tool for selling electronic media.

The culture of gathering listening and viewing data with the use of Portable People Meter and the Diary is alien to Nigeria, at least for now. Presently, Radio and TV stations in the country rather subscribe to services like Media Planning Services, Research International, Research and Marketing Services, Zus Bureau et cetera. On quarterly basis, they provide application software which subscribers use in analyzing media audience and marketing information data. FRCN is a subscriber to the services of Media Planning Services.

The bottom line of this discourse is to stress the inevitability of audience research data in modern broadcast marketing endeavors, and also encourage stations that are skeptical about the quality of research in the country to shake off their doubts and integrate quickly into the advertising industry ethos by investing on subscription for media research data. I was once a cynic, but was awaken from my professional slumber by a long term friend, Tolu Ogunkoya; a media independent and CEO of Media Reach. He was a resource person at an APCON organized workshop I attended some years back. His words: “old boy the industry today believes so much in this stuff, you have no choice but to key in………..or you get kicked out”

I will like to conclude by quoting Steve Morris, Chairman, President and CEO of Arbitron Inc to reiterate the import of audience data as an essential tool for broadcast marketers. He inspired thus: “Our radio customers have been saying that, in order to develop targeted capability of selling our product, they {media} need to isolate not just the numbers and demographics, but to provide a more precise audience profile that they {media} can use as real sales tool”