National Radio Survey (Kansallinen Radiotutkimus KRT) is a base study of the radio industry. It measures the number of listeners and time spent listening of all Finnish radio stations every month, regardless of the place of listening or the device being used. The study is conducted by the so called diary method. In practice the 9+ years old respondents mark their overall radio listening each week by drawing a line to the diary that marks the station and the place of listening.
The background data, i.e. target group information, is collected along with recruitment procedures.
Panel members are recruited by phone regardless of their telephone subscriber connections. The sample is randomly selected (using quotas for municipals, sex and age groups) from the population register. More than 18 000 respondents return their diaries annually, which makes the percent 70 %.
There have been changes to National Radio Survey in the beginning of 2009. The aim of these reforms is to further improve the quality of the research sample. The following three changes have been introduced:
Including the Swedish speaking population: The base population for National Radio Survey is now all 9 + years old Finnish and Swedish speaking population excluding the Åland islands. Swedish speaking respondents will be added to the reports according as the each month of reports is from year 2009. The reason for this is that the base sample of the study must be consistent in order to analyze the research data. The reports including the Swedish speaking sample will be announced in National Radio Survey’s Online system.
Including respondents without phone numbers: National Radio Survey’s sample now includes the respondents who have no phone numbers when the sampling is conducted. This group of people are recruited to the study by advance letters. This sample will be included in all reports from the beginning of the year 2009. It represents about 25 % of the total sample.
The capital area panels will be dissolved: All respondents will be recruited to the study for only one week’s research period, which means that the continuous panels of the capital area will not be maintained anymore. In future, the report of the capital area will be based on every 3 month’s data, with the exception of January-February 2009 report in order to obtain the same rhythm with other reports.
The changes mentioned above must be taken into account when comparing results to earlier datasets.
National Radio Survey provides data for radio stations to plan their programming and to monitor their audience trends. National Radio Survey also provides refined information for marketing planners in advertising and media agencies. For example the key figures used for planning and optimizing campaigns are based on National Radio Survey. Also the spot and contact trading key figures can be measured by the data provided by National Radio Survey.
National Radio Survey is a joint audience research project of Yleisradio and the commercial radio stations. It has established its position as the base study of the radio industry.
National Radio Survey’s subscribers are Yleisradio Oy (the public broadcasting company), commercial radios represented by RAB Finland Oy, and Finnish Association of Marketing Communication Agencies (MTL). The subscribers form the so called steering group which supervises and developes the research together with the research organization.
The study is conducted by
Finnpanel Oy, which is one of the world’s most recognized and reliable media research organizations. Finnpanel Oy is a member of ESOMAR (European Society for Opinion and Marketing Research) and it is owned by two of the world’s biggest market research companies, TNS (In Finland,
TNS Gallup Oy) and Nielsen (In Finland,
A.C. Nielsen Finland Oy).
