New Radio station entry to RAJAR

The RAJAR survey is open to any Ofcom licensed commercial radio station subject to the Commercial Ratecard and the sampling framework in place to support this. There are certain criteria that must be met to make the subscription work for the station concerned and for RAJAR, and recently these conditions have been amended in response to the nature of COVID-19 and RAJAR's modified survey methodology (effective Q3 2021).

Previously, a station could join the survey provided the RAJAR sample was deemed adequate to support a robust analysis of its audience and area. This excludes certain niche services where targeting listeners are unviable for random sampling. For small stations estimated to have insufficient sample in the existing survey, it was usually possible for them to boost their own area, subject to field interviewer resource being available. However, in March 2020, RAJAR was forced to suspend its interviewer fieldwork operation for over a year because of COVID-19. RAJAR has worked extremely hard to set up a replacement service with new listening data from Q3 2021. However, due to labour shortages in the general employment market affecting many industries and the time it takes to train suitable interviewer applicants up to the standard required, RAJAR is not in a position to accommodate new stations wishing to join the RAJAR survey that require any additional or bespoke sample. This has particular relevance for smaller stations seeking audience measurement. Consequently, new stations must adopt an existing TSA (or TSA's) that broadly matches their own broadcast footprint on a caveat emptor basis. This may mean they are listed outside of their actual footprint. RAJAR will work with any such station to ascertain the area that represents the best fit for them.

Entry to the survey

• All stations must adhere to the station entry deadlines.
• A new digital only station joining must be measured in an already existing TSA.
• A national station can join the survey at any quarter.
• A local station with an identical TSA (Total Survey Area) to a commercial station already on the survey can also join at any quarter.
• A regional / local analogue station with a non-identical TSA can only join the survey in quarter 1 or quarter 3 on the condition that they comply with the relevant station entry dates.

Ratecard/Fees

The RAJAR Commercial Radio ratecard lists the annual subscription fees for both analogue and digital stations to join the survey. The digital fees are shown in red. All fees are based on the station's population band in their defined TSA and are listed ex VAT. (It should be noted that given the level of reach of digital listening, the rate card incentive for Digital only stations will remain under review).

Fees are payable by Direct Debit either monthly or quarterly in advance depending on a formal credit check. Payments are taken on, or shortly after, the first of the month.

The subscription fee year runs from December to November however, if a station joins the survey during the year the fee is reduced pro-rata to the number of quarters surveyed i.e. if a station joins the survey in quarter 3 the fee is half that quoted on the ratecard.

Subscription Process

Please email us subs@rajar.co.uk for a station joining form.

You will be required to send us the postcodes for the areas you wish to be surveyed. Once all checks have been undertaken and you have agreed to the TSA, we will confirm the subscription fee and issue a contract.

Terms & Conditions

The Terms and Conditions detail "the RAJAR service" provided and form part of your contract with us alongside the Publication Code. The Terms and Conditions are applicable to the latest set published on the website.

Contracts run on an annual basis and continue thereafter until notice is served. The contractual notice period is 12 months and must be given in writing.

Publication Code

All subscribers shall comply with the Publication Code which covers the use and publication of RAJAR data.

Reporting

All services will be reported quarterly, based on the fieldwork periods shown on the ratecard. For example: a 12-month reporting station will need to be on the survey for one year before the first report is published; thereafter reporting is quarterly based a rolling 12-month fieldwork period.

Station subscribers will receive the following reports:

• Standard results for each station, comprising of 10 tables, will be available to each station for their own services. These will be available as an electronic file on the day of data release.
• Standard results will also be available for all other reporting services on the day of data release. These tables will only be available electronically.

Non-standard reports may be commissioned and delivered in electronic format for an appropriate fee. Please contact us for details.

Fieldwork and Reporting dates

Fieldwork is conducted 50 weeks of the year across the UK with approximately 15,000 face-to-face participants filling out a diary each Quarter and 10,000 panel members generating up to three diaries each per Quarter. This is scheduled to change to 5,000 panel members from Q3 2022

Each quarter’s fieldwork is split into three (monthly) periods and the full quarter's results (issued to all station subscribers) are issued at 10.30 am on the "results to stations day" on the release date timetable.

All data for publication is embargoed until 00.01am the next day.

Notes

For more information see the About RAJAR section.

Only stations licenced by Ofcom may join RAJAR Ltd.

The sampling structure of RAJAR is designed to provide data for commercial and BBC stations regardless of genre or regionality and delivers cost-efficiencies based on the bulk of diaries in the sample being shared by multiple stations.

It is recommended that commercial stations wishing to join RAJAR also register with the Radiocentre. Radiocentre are joint owners of RAJAR and represent the interests of commercial radio stations on the RAJAR Board as well as the Technical Management Group (TMG) alongside representatives from the BBC and IPA. Radiocentre information may be found at www.radiocentre.org.

RAJAR will consider applications from Ofcom licenced community stations. Due to the highly localised survey requirements of community radio stations, to be considered, these stations must adopt the TSA of an already existing Commercial Station.

View our Privacy Notice.

If you have any specific questions not covered above, you can email us or phone 020 7395 0630.