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Changes to GfK radio ratings must not be ‘led by opinion’: Video

During the following talk from 2018's Radio Alive Conference, GfK's managing director Morten Boyer discusses Australia's evolving radio ratings.

Market research company GfK is ensuring it is “not led by opinion” as it begins to rethink how Australia’s radio ratings are measured. The GfK method currently uses a diary-based system, which has previously been criticised for its over-reliance on participants’ memory. 

Morten Boyer, managing director at GfK, asks the audience at this year’s Radio Alive Conference: “How would you do it? How would you all go about designing such a measurement system?

“The problem with opinions is they can be very subjective… We want to be sure that wherever possible, we are not led by opinion, but we are taking a more scientific approach and following the principles of the scientific method.”

He explains how more testing needs to be conducted before the company can think about rolling out changes to its measurement system.

“When we look at the testing we’ve done here in Australia so far, we still don’t have the confidence we feel we need to make a substantial change to your methodology at this point,” says Boyer.

“That’s a very important step so we need to be sure.”

Boyer explains that since each of GfK’s pilot studies have been conducted over “quite a time range”, the results “are not really comparable.”

“If we want to built a statistical model, a hybrid model for radio, we simply don’t have the robustness in the sample and also enough crossover in the different devices that we use for radio to confidently move ahead.”

In order to combat this, GfK is planning on launching a “super pilot”, which will launch across the five major metro markets and include research across GfK’s app, watches and diary.

During his speech at last year’s conference, Boyer admitted all electronic rating methods “provide an incomplete level of listening”.

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