"South Africa's radio landscape is incredibly vibrant, with over 300 community and commercial stations broadcasting in 11 official languages across four distinct audience segments," says the BRC's CEO Gary Whitaker. "Accurately measuring listening in this complex environment requires innovative methodologies and robust data integration." 

The BRC says the RAMS AMPLIFY™ model combines a high-quality CATI day-after-recall survey as the core currency measurement with supplemental data sources. This hybrid approach captures both basic listening metrics and deeper insights.

According to the findings, radio is in a good place. The latest RAMS data highlights radio's continued strong reach and resonance in South Africa, as seen below:

  • Seventy-five percent of South Africans 15 and older listen to radio weekly, with an average daily time spent listening of five hours and 12 minutes.
  • Radio scores well across all socio-economic groups.
  • Even as digital platforms grow, broadcast radio co-exists strongly, with 68% of social media users and 76% of music streamers being weekly radio listeners as well.
  • Commercial and public stations attract varied audiences, with many stations garnering over one million weekly listeners across languages like Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, and English.

"Radio's intimacy and local cultural connections enable it to thrive alongside new media," Whitaker says. "Stations like Ukhozi FM, Metro FM and Umhlobo Wenene FM remain powerhouses with vast footprints even as digital behaviours advance."

According to the BRC, the plan is to construct a seven-day listener from a CATI-based DAR methodology by building a synthetic panel of listeners. While the CATI survey is the core of RAMS AMPLIFY™, the BRC worked to incorporate other data sources to enrich insights.

Its previously proposed MediaCell passive measurement panel was paused in October 2023 due to various challenges deploying the app in certain segments.

The BRC says by fusing and modelling the CATI data, RAMS AMPLIFY™ data aims to provide both robust ratings and rich insights. Advanced modelling starting with 73 920 respondents and a 24-month database creates a virtual panel of over 400 000 respondents to allow for reliable analysis of listening by:

  • municipality
  • socio-economic segment, and
  •  age.

"We've created a best-in-class fused solution that combines the advantages of a high-quality phone survey with leading data science techniques," adds Whitaker. "This allows us to deliver a true single-source view of audio alongside robust planning data for radio."

Going forward, the BRC says that it will further enhance RAMS AMPLIFY™ with improvements such as:

  •  a streamlined questionnaire, a crosstab database that is aligned with the planning database in that it too is a 7-day dataset and 24-months rolling
  • potential incorporation of online and face-to-face elements when gathering data, and
  • the inclusion of streaming listeners into the planning data.

It also aims to examine opportunities beyond audience measurement such as fusing RAMS AMPLIFY™ with audio need-states.  

"With a solid core measurement now established, we can explore radio's role in the full audio landscape, including streaming, podcasting and more," concludes Whitaker. "Our goal is to provide an unparalleled understanding of how brands can best utilise audio to engage audiences across South Africa."

For more information, visit www.brcsa.org.za.

*Image courtesy of contributor