When it comes to surveys people often behave differently than they report. Researchers at Ball State University in Indiana say that people, in fact, use up to twice as much media as they report in listening diaries and telephone surveys. In a study commissioned by the University, these researchers call for new methods of audience measurement, such as the Arbitron Portable People Meter (PPM).The PPM is about the size of a packet of cigarettes and can be worn on your belt or kept in your handbag. The meter samples the sound of radio programs being listened to by the wearer. For this to happen the radio stations have to send out a special encoded signal. Each night, before bedtime, the People Meters are put into a “docking station” which charges the battery and uploads the information gathered that day.
In their study researchers at the Ball State University Center for Media Design in Indiana followed 101 people through an entire day, from the moment they woke to the moment they went to sleep, recording their actual media usage behaviour. The study then compared the observed findings to two common forms of media research: written diaries and telephone samples. The academic researchers found that most media usage was greatly underreported, especially in telephone surveys.
DEATH OF A RADIO LEGEND
The man who invented the initial technology for traffic reports on radio has died at the age of 95 from Parkinson’s disease. In 1955, when Loyd Sigmon was an executive at KMPC, he invented a system to allow Los Angeles police to issue emergency warnings to radio stations and provide traffic information. He called his device SigAlert and it used a tape recorder and shortwave radio receiver that allowed a police dispatcher to activate it using a special tone, then record a message that could be broadcast. At the station, a red light and occasionally a buzzer alerted the engineer that a message was ready.
A SigAlert was issued when one or more lanes were blocked for at least half an hour, but it originally warned of other dangers. On Labor Day 1955, the first SigAlert was broadcast by six radio stations warning of a train derailment near Union Station. Other early bulletins included five warnings of rabid dogs, a ship collision in Los Angeles Harbour and one SigAlert which alerted a customer after a pharmacist called police informing them of a potentially fatal error he had made in filling a prescription. A salute to Loyd Sigmon...a true visionary.
A NEW FORMAT: GANG RADIO
One of radio’s strengths has always been its immediacy. For example—letting criminal gangs know when the police are on the way. That was the programming format on 104.7FM in Chicago until a combined police and FCC (Federal Communications Commission) raid shut the pirate station down.
The station was run by a street gang known as The Black Disciples from a building owned by alleged Disciples leader Marvel Thompson. The raid also netted over $300,000 in cash, 11 guns, bullet-proof vests, and jewellery. I guess they ultimately failed by not alerting themselves to the impending raid.
KIDDIES AT PLAY
A couple of 10 year old kids put non-commercial urban station KMOJ in Minneapolis-St. Paul off the air for 17 hours when they got into some heavy equipment at a construction site and managed to do half a million dollars worth of damage. This included snapping the station’s power line when they hit a pole. They drove the 100,000 pound excavator several hundred feet, levelling a trailer and crushing the cab of the vehicle. They were then caught going through the contents of a station employees van.
Children under 10 can’t be prosecuted. As a rather sick aside it’s worth noting that KMOJ promotes itself as “The People’s Station”, and its mission statement says: “KMOJ... shall remain a persistent advocate for education, social responsibility, and cultural integrity of African people. The mission of KMOJ is to teach members of the African community media skills that help to reinstate the affirmative African image.” Obviously these kids hadn’t listened to the station. Unless you count media skills as being able to trash a transmitter site!
STUNTS THAT ARE A GAS
With petrol/gasoline prices soaring around the world, radio stations are predictably leaping into the old free fill-up giveaway promotion to the first (fill in number) listeners to turn up. In Sydney, FM rocker Triple M has been filling up the tanks of the first 105 cars to turn up at a nominated service station. However there was some confusion for one elderly driver in an elderly car. The man patiently waited more than 90 minutes in line, finally getting to the front, only to put his blinker on and drive off, thinking he had been caught in a traffic jam!
Off the dial is an Ian MacRae concept; any comments, radio stories, suggestions, please email me at ian@allaboutradio.net.
