RAM sets afoot in nine more cities to fillip radio advertising

Radio Audience Measurement (RAM), a division of TAM Media Research plans to boost radio advertising across nine additional key commercial Indian cities, in addition to the four Indian metros it was operating in for the last four years. The nine additional cities are Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Nagpur and Pune. RAM has released its first set of findings on the basis of Universe Establishment Study and Panel based Respondent data collected during May-August 2011.

This study comprised of two steps. Step one (May-June 2011) was centred around Radio Establishment Survey which included defining and updating the reporting universe for RAM, ascertaining factors that influence radio consumption and helping in setting the sampling frames for the panel setup.

The second step (July-August 2011) was about Panel recruitment, counseling and reporting which involved random stratified sampling to ensure robust representation, followed by panel counseling.

With this initiative RAM intends to help the radio industry, broadcasters and media planning agencies, to assess the impact that radio is having on audiences in towns other than the major metros. RAM will undertake the next leg of sweeps during February-March 2012.

On the announcement, L V Krishnan, cheif executive officer, TAM Media Research, said, “Our commitment to take RAM beyond the four metros has fructified. This time, the RAM roll out is much wider and deeper. These nine cities will throw light on advertisers about the interaction radio is bringing to their consumers and also help Broadcasters fine tune their basket of programming to these Audiences. This will help propel higher commercial viability for the Industry at large. As always, we will work very closely with the industry to help them understand the dynamics of this high potential communication and brand building medium from these markets as well. Like in four RAM metros earlier, we believe  that in these nine metros too, RAM’s entry will boost the radio advertising investments.”

He added that Radio AdEx data has reflected a positive change that RAM has brought about in the radio advertising scenario ever since its launch in 2007. Not only have the ad duration volume gone up by 87%, there are new advertisers that have entered which has resulted in a 42% increase in the advertiser base, and the number of brands participating in radio advertising has gone up by 45%.

The study shows trends about radio listenership or consumption behaviour between the different cities. Some highlights are:

• The universe size of the newly added nine markets is 50% of the existing four RAM markets (Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai). Southern markets observe higher FM penetration as compared to northern markets.
• On an average, there is 95% FM universe has been reached in a week across all the markets.
• Chennai and Jaipur observe 100% weekly reach.
• Time spent listening among the nine new markets is comparatively more than the existing four metro markets.
• Markets like Nagpur and Jaipur observe 28.29 (hh:mm) and 24.05 (hh:mm) time spent on a weekly basis.
• While majority of the newly added nine markets observe heavy In Home listening, OOH (out-of-home) listening in existing four metros market is higher compared to new markets.
• Indore and Lucknow observe least OOH listening among the new RAM markets.
• Majority of the new markets have heavy composition from male audiences whereas existing Mumbai and Kolkata market witness substantial composition from female audiences.
• Listenership in northern cities like Delhi and Jaipur are skewed towards higher SECs. Market like Nagpur and Kanpur are skewed towards lower SECs.
• Morning time band observes highest listenership contribution across the day.
• Indore market observes highest listenership contribution from mid morning time band
• Listenership contribution on Saturday and Sunday are higher for the new markets whereas in the existing markets Saturday observes least contribution