Radio ratings delayed until October

The release of the data from Survey 6 has been delayed has been delayed by nine days.

Industry body Commercial Radio Australia (CRA) said the delay was caused by ongoing COVID-19 restrictions.

Results for Survey 6 will now be available on Thursday, October 7, instead of the scheduled date of Tuesday, September 28.

The shift in date follows Survey 5, which was also pushed back for the same reason.

CRA CEO, Joan Warner, said ratings provider GfK gad requested the delay.

“Ongoing travel restrictions and lockdowns together with postal and general delivery delays in Sydney and Melbourne directly affect data collection and processing times,” she said. “CRA acknowledges this is a challenging time and has agreed to this short delay to the release of Survey 6 results.”

Earlier this week, CRA announced the radio ratings system would be overhauled, with a stronger focus on e-diaries from Survey 6 onwards. The industry body said this would make the ratings more resilient to COVID disruptions, while maintaining the annual sample size of 60,000.

The long-anticipated Radio360 program will also involve live streaming data being integrated to provide more information on the size and profile of audiences listening across digital platforms.

In addition, a panel of 2,000 consumers will be asked to wear an electronic watch meter that will detect when the wearer is in listening range of radio broadcast. The device will provide encrypted anonymised information which will be used to validate and ensure the streaming data is accurate and deduplicated.