The Infinite Dial

"Radio needs to start intelligently surveying consumers. We continue to spend money researching which songs are burned and which DJs are familiar. But what level of investment is being devoted to truly gaining an understanding of the consumer? Is it that important to find out whether Z93 is the concert station? Or is it more germane to comprehend where the audience is going to satisfy their music, talk, entertainment, and information needs -- and how radio can provide a unique, compelling product in this digital landscape."

Those are the words of Jacobs Media's Fred Jacobs on his Website this morning. And the only place where we disagree with him is the notion that a lot of stations are continuing to spend money researching old questions or new ones. Even before the Bears of September 2008 began their rampage, broadcasters stared down the biggest landscape change in 30 years and responded by shortening their stagers. They saw how much less time listeners were spending with their stations and kept playing the same records that they last researched two years ago. Having seen the burn double on "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Jack and Diane" over the last two years, I wouldn't be so quick to declare that question irrelevant just yet.

But Fred's right that a lot of questions need to be asked now and that includes a lot of new questions - both those that better ascertain listener needs and those that predict PPM behavior in the same way that most market surveys became pretty good at predicting diary behavior. Research is a major investment - particularly in this climate. Stations are right to demand innovation and if you haven't gotten that from your provider, we'd like to talk to you.

As for some of the backbone questions of survey research, we understand that anybody who has lived through more than a few surveys might think they've heard them a lot. "What one station is the concert station?" went out of our surveys a long time ago--unless a client wanted it. Others are absolutely there for a reason, even now. Perhaps the wording is standard; the creativity is in the analysis. We can also tell you that a lot of clients (and, ahem, consultants) will shave the more creative questions from a survey in favor of "boilerplate," just because the latter is in their comfort zone.

Five years ago, research, like marketing, was sufficiently widespread that the mere fact of doing it merely made you as competitive as the next guy. And, again, as with marketing, it once again separates those stations that are able to do it from those that are not. Before long, the changes in market rank that accompany a significant change in the "camera angle" at which we measure listening will become less pronounced. And it will then be up to you to make your station's position in the market more dynamic.