The best time of year to field perceptual studies, callout, focus groups, music tests? In the constant change that is today's radio universe, the answer is usually "yesterday."
And, as a result, most research companies are working non-stop, year round where once upon a time they centered their activities in the first and third quarters - when many stations get set for fall and spring surveys.
Consolidation cut back on the amount of marketing research done by radio at first back in the late 90's and early 2000's, but now thanks to internet survey and social networking tools there's no reason why any radio manager can't do as much, or even more, listener research and data crunching as was done forty years ago -- when only a few very innovative companies began to recognize that it was possible to learn more about a competitor than even they knew about themselves.
Ultimately, perceptual studies, focus groups and music testing became ubiquitous, until it became obvious that if three stations in the same format all targeted the same demographic, they'd all end up positioning themselves as "less talk, more music" and playing the same 250-300 songs.
Today, it takes a much more sophisticated approach to digging deeper into tastes and lifestyles to fully understand what coalitions drive loyalty and usage, understanding when you can "do-it-yourself" and when the findings you get from online tactics require greater expertise from one of the excellent radio research companies, who - given the complexity of our multi-platform world - are busier than ever.
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