Measuring Audience and Impact Go round: who are you and what do you want from us?/ what experience do you have? Why do research? Helen Manchester, University of Manchester Salvatore Scifo, University of Westminster Salvatore Scifo - Identity and Location

Evaluating audience What it is that you want to know? (adapted from J.Gordon, 2006) Raw number of listeners Proportion of radio listeners at any one time What the listeners think Which sections of the community like you most – by age, sex, social class or ethnicity Which parts of your schedule are more or less popular Why those who don’t listen to you choose not to Measuring Audience and Impact

Some tips on Research Design (from CRT) Evaluating audience Some tips on Research Design (from CRT) More questions you ask > more data you will have to analyse > the longer it will take to conduct the survey > the harder it will be to persuade public to participate Be aware that the results of surveys changes by changing the wording of questions or even the order in which you ask them Avoid recording general comments and use multiple choice options that enable you to extract those vital percentages. Measuring Audience and Impact

Measuring Audience and Impact Evaluating audience A sample group of 1000 people (respondents) gives a fairly accurate picture of an audience A larger group does not give much more precision 100 people is the minimum number for a survey Difference is in degrees of accuracy   Measuring Audience and Impact

How to choose the sample group Evaluating audience   How to choose the sample group Sample of respondents potentially within your audience on:  the High Street, Day Centre, Sports Club, Market Hall, etc. Over a short period (eg 2 days) 10 of the station volunteers approach 10 people each who they feel are probably within the station’s potential audience Measuring Audience and Impact

How to conduct the survey Evaluating audience   How to conduct the survey Get permission from the site owner if necessary, a street is public place, a community centre is not Insist that the respondents must be unknown to the volunteers doing the survey. Keep the survey to a few simple questions Measuring Audience and Impact

How to conduct the survey – 2 Evaluating audience How to conduct the survey – 2 Approach the respondent and explain what you are doing Check that the respondent is within the potential audience Have they heard of the station? Have they listened or viewed any of the output with the last week? What did they hear or watch, prompt them by naming a couple of programmes and asking about content Measuring Audience and Impact

Evaluating audience Using a sample of 100 makes the maths very simple: 43 out of the 100 is equal to 43%   To convert this percentage to actual numbers > demographic breakdown of your area These are the actual population figures that you can obtain from: local authority website local library town hall www.statistics.gov.uk Measuring Audience and Impact

Measuring Audience and Impact Impact Measurement Work out what it is that you want to measure Eg (from Jallov) is the radio station working effectively as an organism? social gain?/ ‘soft outcomes’ capacity of the station to meet the needs and desires of the community? OR Korbel: personal, community and mainstream agency benefits Involving all communities, applying participatory, open and access-based principles? Are the programmes considered good and effective locally Social gain/ community development changes Measuring Audience and Impact Salvatore Scifo - Identity and Location

Impact Measurement How are you going to do it? content and reception analysis regular interviews/ sounding out the community audience questionnaires for listeners who call in analysis of letters/emails from listeners individual in depth interviews/ testimonials from partners focus groups with different 'community' groupings reflective diaries/ audio diaries/ blogs Choose the method to suit what you want to find out. Also got to be practical and sustainable! So for eg if you want to find out whether ‘communities’ feel represented in the station you run some focus groups, if you want to find out about how the radio station is running you might encourage volunteers and other to start blogs/ audio diaries? About audience: letters/ emails About developing a reflective culture, where evaluation/ reflection always seen as part of a process/ written in to all processes Measuring Audience and Impact Salvatore Scifo - Identity and Location

Measuring Audience and Impact Impact Measurement Participatory evaluation Who? Community members, project staff etc What? Identified by people How? Self evaluation, simple methods attached to local culture, open, immediate hearing of results When? more frequent, small scale evaluations Why? to empower local people to initiate, control and take action Taking reflective processes to logical level Measuring Audience and Impact Salvatore Scifo - Identity and Location

Impact Measurement A 'community mobilizer’ continued contact with the community ensuring that all 'communities within a community' are represented active community research ongoing training of community programmers Measuring Audience and Impact

Measuring Impact and Audience Any questions? ‘Nugget Mining’ > we have to take a ‘Nugget of Knowledge’ to the final plenary: >> best idea for good practice from the session >> your own practice Measuring Audience and Impact

Measuring Audience and Impact Thank you!  Helen Manchester helen.l.manchester@manchester.ac.uk Salvatore Scifo scifos@westminster.ac.uk Measuring Audience and Impact