Music research, perceptual and tracking studies, focus groups, and advertising effectiveness studies can lead a station to a larger audience, greater time spent listening, and more ad revenues. As consultants and researchers to radio stations for more than sixteen years, we've observed a number of research errors.
Problems often result in wasted time and money and compromised results.
The right questions must be asked of the right people. Company goals for the research project should be queried. If exploring the station's image with current listeners is a goal, do the same for competitors. If attaining larger ratings is the goal, the study should survey a segment of the population that replicates the ratings sampling in terms of demographics, gender, race, and ZIP Codes by county. Serious errors can occur in screening.