Interesting thread RA.

Many years ago I received a ballot too...

You should have seen my colleagues and bosses eyes "light up"  when I told them !!

Naturally I was totally impartial when I filled it out....(I was laughing out loud as I typed that).

I also know of a former radio executive who was censured when he was found to have "purchased" a ballot from someone. The phony s.o.b. then left radio went into civic politics !! 

Fits no ??

I guess some folks just have short memories.
  

i've received 3 calls so far (here in whitby). after some discussion, they concluded that i'm "still involved in the business" (I still voice spots plus i do buy radio/tv airtime for clients, from time to time). i must admit, i was tempted...(toonie et al).

My friend finally got his official diary in the mail on Monday and wrote me the following email. He's given me permission to share it here. 
 
"It's here. Or at least it will be. The survey lasts a week and officially starts on March 28th. So all PDs and Brand Managers should take note and put on their best programming that week! 
 
In case you've never seen a real diary, let me describe it. There are at least seven pages of questions about where I work, how much I make, where I shop, how often, my online listening habits, whether I have a satellite radio subscription, and more. What I find most intriguing are the specific industries or services they hone in on for my demo, asking the kind of car I drive, where I get it serviced, if I have a cell phone and whether that plan has been changed in the last year, and on and on it goes. Pretty nosy if I do say so myself!
 
But what really surprised me is a page that asks you to fill in the list of radio stations you've heard that week. There’s only six spaces! I’m hardly the average listener, I’ll admit, but I tune in to dozens of different stations every week and six won’t even come close to covering it. Not only that, but they ask you to list the call letters of each one.
 
That’s not a problem for me, but with so many stations dropping their calls for brand identifiers, I wonder how many people even know what they are. Do you think the average diary-filler knows that Boom is CHBM, or Indie 88.1 is CIND? And would they bother trying to find out? I’m sure Numeris is well aware of it and compensates when someone writes in “Flow.” (Or is it now “Move?”) Anyway, seems limited to me. Not to mention what happens if a person accidentally writes in the wrong station, with so many of them having the same playlists. 
 
Then there’s the actual diary itself, which is measured in 14 minute increments. You’re supposed to list that entire time period, even if you’ve only tuned in for five minutes. What it doesn’t say is how to fill it out if you’re an inveterate button pusher like me, who constantly switches stations and rarely stays in one place for five minutes!
 
And to my complete non-surprise, the diary re-emphasizes how unimportant the late shifts are. They don’t care about anything that airs between 1 am and 5 am. Which certainly explains much of the overnight syndicated or automated programming that occupies most stations these days. They also ask you to list where you’re listening (home, work, car or other.)
 
But perhaps what really bugs me most is there’s no more loonies or twonies included with the thing anymore. Considering how much actual work this is, at least they should give you something for your trouble!
 
So that’s my early diary experience. You said you wanted an update my old friend and now you know more than you probably wanted to! I only hope I can actually keep up with the thing. Until then, GTA radio stations beware. I’m armed with a Numeris diary and I know how to use it!”

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If there's more to come, I'll let you know. 

Last edited by RadioActive (March 21, 2016 11:59 am)

It’s been a while since I heard from my retired radio friend who finally got a Numeris diary to fill out. They must have liked what he did because the company sent him a follow-up survey, with a long list of questions. But there’s one in particular that struck him as odd. I’ll let him tell you about it.
 
This thing is a literal book. It’s 86 f-ing pages! No one in their right mind would take the enormous amount of time it takes to fill it out. But since I’ve never been in my right mind, I naturally did it. When I received the original diary, I got nothing for my trouble. This time, they sent a crisp $5 bill inside, to try to guilt me into doing it. Since that was more than I made at some stations I’ve worked at, I decided to take the money and run!
 
The survey asks a lot of typical consumer demographic questions, including whether you frequent restaurants or go to concerts and how often, what products you use, which stores you go to etc. The long form census isn’t so detailed.
 
But there was one part that captured my already limited attention. The original ratings diary instructed users to only input what they listened to between 6 A.M. and 1 A.M. After that, they didn’t care. But this one paid special attention to the early morning hours, asking “how many hours do you listen to the radio between 1 A.M. and 5 A.M.?” on weekdays and then on weekends. At first I thought it was a misprint.
 
I actually called their special helpline to find out if there was a mistake. The guy answered the phone “hello?” instead of “Numeris” and frankly, I didn’t think I had the right number. But he finally confessed he worked for the firm and told me that, yes that WAS the question.
 
When I asked why they were suddenly paying attention to the middle of the night graveyard shift, he didn’t know. But there it was. There were also TV related viewing queries and many of those were about the wee hours, as well.
 
Why would they suddenly care about the hours of radio which are unrated and for the most part filled with syndicated or repeat rerolls? Very weird.
 
The only thing I refused to answer were the questions about how much I made, how much my investments were worth, what was the estimated value of my house and that kind of thing. It’s bad enough I have to tell the government once every April. It’s none of their business and I told them so, suggesting a “prefer not to answer” box be placed onto future surveys.
 
They said they’d consider it, which means it will never happen!
 
Well, that’s probably the end of my adventures in ratings land. But it sure was fun while it lasted! And I made five bucks on the thing, too!”