Dear Dan Brown : Have We Got a Plot Line For You !

The scene unfolds Wednesday, March 8, with a press release headline:“AIMC Discovers Plot to Alter the Results of General Media Study.”

AIMC (La Asociación para la Investigación de los Medios de Comunicación – Association for the Investigation of the Communications Media) is the Spanish joint industry group that produces audience and readership surveys, including the General Media Study (EGM). The only details revealed are buried in careful language, the lawyers obviously consulted. AIMC “detected the existence of false interviewers within the field-work groups attempting to manipulate the survey data.” The AIMC Board, said the release, continues to investigate. Pending that, the first survey wave (January through March) might be called off.

ftm background

All Fall Down – Internet Levels Spanish Media, Except Free Sheets
The internet marches on in Spain, attracting more and more daily use, according to the Estudio General de Medios (EGM) report. Television, radio, magazines, weekly newspapers and cinema have declined in daily or weekly use. And, for the first time in five years daily newspaper use does not grow. Worst hit was cinema attendance, falling to 7.1% from 11% in 2001.

It Was Just a Joke Says Radio COPE
A broadcasting law recently taking force in the Spanish Catalan region is raising tensions – and considerable naughty language - as the government controlled regulator takes on Cadena COPE.

Media Moves into the Personal Space
Research in Spain and France show mobile phones and personal MP3 players on the rise. Broad-band, too. Other media: not so good.

"What Gets Measured Gets Done"
What and how we measure media is likely to change what media does.

EGM Spanish Media Study: TV and Radio Down, Dailies and Internet Up
The annual report on all Spanish media, released December 9, brightened the day for newspaper publishers. Radio network Cadena SER posts biggest national audience in its history.

Wednesday night, early by Spanish custom but yet quite dark, Radio COPE’s Lantern program announced an investigation by its journalists, led by sports director Jose Antonio Abellán, had been conducted to “demonstrate fraud” within the EGM. The network had, by its own admission, infiltrated its “journalists” into the field-work groups.

By Thursday morning, Sr Abellán was touring the interview circuit, on the offensive. “We wanted to demonstrate the certainty of accusations started years ago against the EGM,” he told Libertad Digital. He went on to accuse the EGM of “shoddy work” although his purely journalistic exercise had “not discovered manipulation.” He did not mention the rather significant and, to some Spanish observers, unexpected ratings surge favoring Radio COPE in the first survey wave on 2005.

AIMC contracts several companies for field-work; accepted, normal practice. Two Radio COPE journalists took jobs with one. If allegations are bourn out in a more neutral investigation, a virtual certainty, the field-work companies have questions to answer. The first, of course, relates to hiring practices. One of allegations concerns interviews falsified because a supervisor said, allegedly, that AIMC “does not like statistical anomalies.”

Like them or not, statistical anomalies were found, easily unraveling Radio COPE’s intriguing “investigation.” AIMC’s methods, it seems, worked, just not soon enough.

By the end of Thursday, AIMC released another statement, pointing a finger at Radio COPE and threatening to suspend the broadcaster from subsequent surveys. Other media groups, notably the Association of Spanish Commercial Radio (AERC) and the Spanish journalist association, were horrified.

“The AERC urges the AIMC to undertake immediate legal actions,” said the AERC statement, “…to repair the very serious damage caused to the EGM’s credibility, as well as the economic damage from an act of this nature for the AIMC and their associates.” It’s the €13 billion ad business, reliant on AIMC surveys, that made this the biggest media story in Spain.

The big Spanish newspapers by Friday were taking sides. El Mundo, supporting Radio COPE, concentrated its judgment on survey methods, saying “the EGM is a fraud.” El Pais went the other direction, alledging that Radio COPE “fraudentially falsified” the audience survey.

But it was the Madrid daily ABC that tolled the highest bell with its editorial headline: “The Bishops Have A Problem.” Radio COPE is owned by the Catholic Bishops Conference, vocally critical of the current Spanish government.

Dear Dan Brown : Have We Got a Plot Line For You !

Spanish radio network COPE caught cheating the EGM survey, then confesses, saying it was justified “journalism.” This story has everything, Dan: arrogance, deceit, expose, outrage and more.