TAM Media rolls out the 2nd round of its RAM 9 cities Listenership Sweeps

RAM service which was launched by TAM Media Research in 2007 released the second round of its 9 cities Listenership Sweeps.The first round of RAM was released in October 2011.It was also around this time that the announcement of the news on RAM panel coverage expansion to 9 additional cities – Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Nagpur and Pune was made.Prior to that, RAM operated out of the four Indian metros – Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai only.

 

The recently released second Sweeps data is for the period of February-April 2012. It is said that this data will help the radio industry –  broadcasters and media planning agencies – to assess the impact that radio as a medium is having on audiences in towns other than the major metros.

 

Talking about the development, LV Krishnan, CEO,TAM Media Research said: “The second roll out is as per timelines committed by us. After the first Sweeps in October last year, the second one shows interesting changes in radio consumption patterns. While in some markets, radio consumption base itself has seen an increase, in others, granular trends like Out Of Home (OOH) listenership has seen an encouraging increase.”

 

According to the data,certain interesting changes have been observed in radio consumption behavior as compared to the last Sweeps release of October 2011.

 

In Ahemdabad, the average audience has increased significantly in the morning slot while other day slots remained at the same level. The peak at 9 am has grown by 70 per cent. The increase in morning day part is due to 10 per cent growth in cume reach levels. The share of Out of Home listening has grown significantly. Particularly during travel/ conveyance (share of listening growing from 9 to 16%).

 

The cume reach levels have gone up across all the days, while Sunday has seen a significant growth. Time spent levels have seen a very marginal drop across the days. Sunday remains the day with highest time spent level. While 90% of cume reach build up was achieved by afternoon earlier, at a weekly level, now 95% of the audience can be targeted by the morning day part alone.

 

Whereas in Chennai,while cume reach levels have dropped across all the day parts, time spent levels have significantly increased. The maximum increase in time spent being in the morning day part. The audience build up has got spread through the day. It takes up to afternoon day part to cover 95% of all audience. The share of SEC C’s listening has grown from 37% to 43%. The share of in-home listenership grows from 76% to 87%. While Saturday had the highest listenership thresholds the previous round, Sunday has grown beyond Saturday in round 2 – both in terms of cume reach and time spent.

 

The weekly listenership levels have remained at the same levels as the previous round in Nagpur while the daily cume reach has gone up, with Sunday being the maximum, but time spent levels are down across all the days and the share of In-home listening grows from 82-87 per cent. 

 

Jaipur experienced a drop in listenership thresholds across the day. The same reflects in the cume reach levels across the day parts. The dominance of SEC DE in Jaipur’s listenership contribution is normalised and there is proportionate contribution from all SECs to listenership. Morning day part continues to be the one where listenership peaks, though at a lower threshold. Sunday emerges as the one with highest cume reach and time spent levels. The audience build up has got spread through the day. It takes up to afternoon day part to cover 95% of all audience.

 

In Indore, the listenership peaks have interchanged between mid morning and morning, morning peak emerging as the highest Other dayparts are more or less are at the same threshold. At a weekly level, morning day part emerges as the highest in cume reach and time spent. The mid-morning day part saw a reduction cume reach levels. The TSL level growth in night day part. The share of In-home listening significantly drops from 94% to 71%. Maximum growth in Car share of listening (22%). Saturday loses audiences as Sunday emerges as the destination of maximum listening. Faster cume reach build up across the day as 95% of the audiences are reached by the mid-morning day part.

 

Across the day parts TSL has almost doubled in Hyderabad. The evening and night day parts have grown significantly while morning has witnessed a drop in listenership levels. The drop in morning day part is primarily due to drop in cume reach levels, while TSL has grown. The contribution from SEC A & B has increased. There is a 6% drop in share of in-home listening, reflected in the growth of listening share from car/travel/conveyance. There are equal and high threshold of listenership across weekdays and weekends. The evening and night day parts add significant amount of audiences to cume reach build up.

 

Similar listenership thresholds across the day parts were observed in Pune.The mid-morning to night, there is a drop in cume reach levels, but across the day parts there is a growth in TSL levels. The contribution from different places of listening remains the same. Sunday emerges as the destination of highest listenership. Audience addition from afternoon grows in the current year.

 

While in Lucknow,listenership thresholds drop across the day parts,night primetime holds the thresholds. While there is cume reach growth in some of the day parts, there has been TSL drop across all of them. The share of listening from 35+ age group comes down. The contribution from in-home listening grows from 89%-93%. The cumulative audience on Sunday grow from 82% to 94%. Weekdays and weekends have similar thresholds of TSL.

 

There are marginal changes in day part wise preferences in Kanpur. There has been growth in consumption share from SEC AB and 45+ age group. The OOH share of listening grows from 23 to 29%, majority of the growth coming from car/travel and Sunday emerges as the clear leader in listening thresholds.

 

RAM was launched in 2007 to study radio listenership patterns for the Indian Radio Broadcast Industry.