Radio & Audio News South Africa

Rams Amplify data review completed

A data review of Rams Amplify has been completed and various criteria for the viability of the P7D modelling checked by Ian Garland, MD of Milton Data.
Source: © Ron Lach
Source: © Ron Lach pexels

The Broadcast Research Council of South Africa (BRC) and Ipsos South Africa secured his services to design a model for the Reach and Frequency (R&F) data that is based on P7D listenership for the South African market.

The anticipated timings for building and applying the model is six to eight weeks and a test phase will be required before releasing this data to the industry.

This follows the BRC and Ipsos South Africa having achieved a full 12-month dataset for RAMS Amplify at the end of Q1 2022.

The ideal scenario

BRC’s CEO, Gary Whitaker explains that as Rams Amplify relies on Day After Recall (DAR) methodology via Computer Aided Telephonic Interviews (CATI), the R&F data was initially based on Yesterday recall. The ideal scenario, however, is to achieve R&F data based on longitudinal data or Past 7 Day (P7D) data.

“This requires innovative modelling,” says Whitaker.

This is where Garland comes in. He has pioneered ground-breaking work for the likes of Oztam, Commercial Radio Australia, Fox Sports, BBC, NBC Universal and IAB Australia.

Innovative new approach

In 2018 Garland won the Tony Twyman award for best paper at ASI for his paper City Mouse – Country Mouse: bringing the Big Smoke to the Bush.

The paper described the development and application of an innovative new approach to how diary data from metropolitan markets in Australia could be used to model R&F estimates for smaller regional markets for which only DAR studies are practical.

The judges felt that the paper handled a complex topic in an accessible way and that the approach used could have applications in several markets around the world.

Data release

The data will be freely available via the nominated software bureaux as long as the standard software bureau licences are in place and access to Rams data has been granted by the BRC.

The most recent data release, which includes radio currency data for the period June 2021 to May 2022, has reached a total sample size of 37,147 respondents.

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