Radio audience measurement across the world

One discipline within the field of communication studies is the research on media audiences. Each medium has developed its own specialised way of measuring the audience. Radio is no exception here – as one of the oldest forms of media, methodologies have developed a lot over the years. Based on a profound literature analysis, this study gives a detailed account on how radio audiences used to be captured in the past, how and why methodologies have changed and what the current status quo of radio audience measurement (RAM) is in six countries across the world. Moreover, one of the study’s aims is to bring together the academic RAM perspective and the industrial one. On the basis of ten expert interviews with people from all countries in the sample and from different market perspectives, issues were discussed that move the RAM universe. Furthermore, experts evaluated how the future of RAM could look like in their respective country. Against previous assumptions that the academic and industrial discourse tend to have little or no overlap, the results of this study suggest that they in fact share fields of interest. Thus, academic and industry-based discussions could interact in a way that gives radio audience measurement new impetus.