GfK to replace Nielsen as Australian radio’s ratings provider

GfK will run eight surveys a year in the major cities of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, three surveys a year in Newcastle and the Gold Coast, two a year in Canberra and one in Wollongong.

In addition, GfK will be introducing an e-diary system that is compatible with desktop PCs, tablets and mobile phones, allowing respondents to log their listening habits around the clock.

Also, within the first two years of this three-year contract, GfK will run tests of electronic measurement devices – “the aim being to integrate the best and latest form of electronic measurement into the radio audience measurement suite of tools by the end of the first three-year term”, said Joan Warner, CEO of Commercial Radio Australia (CRA), the national industry body.

“At this stage, no electronic device has proved to be reliable or robust enough as the sole measure of radio audience measurement given the scale and complexity of radio’s requirements,” said Warner. “However the industry is committed to investigating with GfK in the first 24 months whether there is a device that may be integrated into a multi-modal approach and would be both feasible and cost effective.”

GfK’s contract with CRA also includes the provision of a 5,000-member panel which will “go beyond surveys” to examine key issues around the consumption of radio via different technologies and the role of radio in people’s lives.

The contract award follows a five-month tender process. Nielsen, the incumbent – which has provided radio ratings in Australia for the past 66 years – will continue to measure audiences on behalf of the CRA until the end of this year.