With the changing mass communication scenario, Audience Research has occupied the centre stage. World over, almost all the big media organizations have been doing in-house audience research in one form or the other or ‘Market Research’ in marketing parlance as no media organization can afford to put their scarce resource at stake without knowing the potential audience(consumers) and market for their media content. Besides, they are also subscribing to syndicated research done by the various media and market research organizations. The secret behind the success of private TV and Radio channels lies in their capability to feel the pulse of audience through continuous audience research and to design and modify the programme content including presentation accordingly.
All India Radio has been the pioneer in this field. It has a wide net work of Audience Research Units across the country operational since 1946. It provides programme feedback to programme producers to plan, design, and modify the progrmmes according to the needs, tastes, and aspiration of the target audience. Apart from this, programme ratings/listenership data are provided to sponsors, advertisers, and marketers to fulfill their commercial objectives.
Role and Functions:
- Providing instant feedback to programme planners/ producers through Quick feedback studies, Listeners’ Letter Analysis, Content Analysis, Focus Group Discussions and Panel Studies etc.
- Carrying out periodical large scale Radio Audience Surveys on various AIR channels to provide listenership data to programmers, sponsors, advertisers, and marketers.
- Undertaking sponsored Audience Research studies from other government departments/autonomous bodies
- Functioning as data bank, research and reference section for the organization.
- Helping to develop marketing strategies in terms of providing listenership data across socio economic categories.
