http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/new ... ital-radio

It has been reported by Rajar that forty-six million people listen to digital radio each week.

What absolute rubbish...... and I will share my opinions after asking this simple question:

Does anyone here know how Rajar surveys are actually conducted?

The answer will surprise you! It shocked me!

no idea please enlighten us. The suspence is killing us. Lol

Rajar told me they included Reach OnAir's figures in that, and it took up 45m of the 46m. SO actually it's just 1m who listen to Digital Radio.

I did two weeks worth of RAJAR figures last year..........the researcher told me they couldnt include the hours I was broadcasting as listening to the station as well!!!!

Bizarre

All Rajar figures are based on people filling in "weekly diary sheets".

Rajar send out so many hundreds of thousands of these sheets to random households, and asks them to fill in how many times they listen to a station, what times, etc. Thats how reliable it is - people could make it up for a laugh, or just not bother filling the sheet in.

Man can walk on the moon, build the most amazing structures and even recreate life in a test tube. So why on earth Rajar hasnt invented a digital way of pinpointing how many people are tuned into a frequency is unbelievable!

But, commercial radio companies oppose every other solution that is suggested. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Rajar is half owned by the BBC, and seeing as the average joe - when asked on the spot - can only recall the name of the biggest BBC stations and presenters that work on them (as in BBC Radio 1, Radio 2), BBC are happy as they are seen as the "most popular".

But when a radio station says they are "the most listened to" in a particular area, its rubbish as its all based on Rajar diary sheets.

From Wikipedia:

"The methodology is based on a paper diary, which is filled in on a quarter-hour basis for one week by a representative sample. In a year, around 130,000 people complete a RAJAR diary"

"There has been controversy over the collection methods, with the former owner of TalkSport, Kelvin MacKenzie, complaining that the diary method consistently under-reported his station's audience. The High Court threw out his lawsuit against RAJAR - the judge dismissing the central plank of his case as "impossible to see".

RAJAR has conducted extensive testing of electronic devices that capture listening, either by picking up encoded signals within station transmissions or by matching captured audio against a database of all transmissions. This would allow measurement to capture both 'conscious' and 'unconscious' listening and would theoretically end listeners attributing their listening to the wrong station. However, RAJAR was not convinced that the devices and the method were ready for use on the main survey and a new two-year contract using diaries was awarded to Ipsos MORI in May 2006, to begin in 2007"