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Red FM to take legal action against Ipsos MRBI over radio listenership figures
07 March 2010 By Samantha McCaughren
Cork radio station Red FM is to take legal action against the company which carries out the JNLR surveys of radio listenership, Ipsos MRBI, after revelations that some of the station’s listenership numbers have been incorrect.
The figures in question do not directly relate to the JNLR figures, but to listenership numbers extrapolated by software from the main results since 2007. Sources said that the figures apparently indicating the number of under-35year-olds tuning in to Red FM were actually those of a rival station aimed at an older audience.
Red FM is claiming it suffered financially as a result.
The discrepancy was uncovered by Independent Radio Sales (IRS), which was carrying out research into listenership trends among under-35s.
Red FM said that the ‘corrected data’ showed the percentage listenership of the target audience was 48 per cent, and not 25 per cent, as had been previously been reported.
In an e-mail to ad agencies last week, Ipsos MRBI said that its software tools ‘‘may produce incorrect calculations’’.
‘‘While there are no errors in the core JNLR published data, the error caused by the Mediastar software resulted in the misrepresentation of listenership levels for the Cork stations and the IRS combined stations," said the research company.
UTV, which owns two stations in Cork, was also affected by the error, although radio sources said it considered the issue minor at present.
Red FM said Ipsos MRBI had confirmed that the figures reported to ad agencies for Red FM since November 2007 have been understated by almost 100 per cent for the station’s target audience. Red FM is part-owned by Thomas Crosbie Holdings, the owner of The Sunday Business Post.
A Red FM spokesperson confirmed that the station’s lawyers had been instructed to issue proceedings. Calls to Ipsos MRBI were not returned last Friday.
‘‘The effect of this error is that the listenership figures of Red FM have, for the past 28 months, appeared to lag behind their competitors whereas, in fact, the opposite is the case," the Red FM spokesman said. ‘‘This error has had a detrimental effect on advertising revenue.
‘‘We brought these errors to the attention of Ipsos MRBI a week ago and since then, have not received an apology or an acknowledgement that Red FM has been badly affected by the errors that have been present for the past 28 months," added the spokesman.
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