UK Judge Dumps Lawsuit Over Radio Surveys

Michael Hedges December 20, 2004

Going to court is a great publicity stunt, until you lose.

There were no bikini-clad Swedish weather-casters in Mr. Justice Lloyd’s chambers (Friday, December 16). Neither was UK broadcast showman extraordinaire Kelvin McKenzie. Few, if any, observers expected the decision to go any other way. Most just wanted the lawsuit to go away.

McKenzie’s lawsuit against RAJAR, intoned the High Court, “did not match the reality of the case.” The Wireless Group, McKenzie’s company, gets the bill, £700,000, first installment due January 6. RAJAR, the joint industry committee overseeing UK radio audience, goes on about the business of evaluating electronic measurement devices.

The Wireless Group filed suit last March against RAJAR, claiming damages from revenue lost because radio audiences are measured by diary, people remembering what they hear, rather than small recording and matching devices that sort out every sound a person comes in contact with.

The Wireless Group owns radio station TalkSport, which, in the RAJAR surveys, rarely makes the top of the ratings list. Contracting with GfK for audience measurement conducted with the Radiocontrol wrist-watch, TalkSport found ratings more to its liking. McKenzie complained, formally, that RAJAR “abused a dominant position” by not using electronic measurement.     

“It’s completely vindicated us and delighted us,“ said RAJAR’s Managing Director Sally de la Bedoyere after the decision was announced.

RAJAR has invested about £1 million testing, evaluating, re-testing and re-evaluating different electronic devices over two years. Legal experts familiar with the case suggest that had TWGs lawsuit gone to trial RAJARs legal fees would have been as much. RAJAR was advised by solicitor Charles Whiddington, head of EU and Competition Law Group Field Fisher Westerhouse.

In October a detailed timetable was posted leading, ultimately, to changes in the way radio audiences are measured by 2007. Three suppliers with new versions of their devices – GfK and the Telecontrol MediaWatch, Arbitron and Personal People Meter and Eurisko NOP with their World Media Monitor - gathered in London in November for extensive field tests, results to follow in January.

In a statement following the decision of the High Court, The Wireless Group chairman McKenzie said he would sue again if RAJAR does not meet the 2007 timetable.

Broadcasters, advertising people and media research companies in Europe and beyond continue to watch RAJARs testing, timetable and the results, preferring to allow the Brits to spend the money. Electronic measurement for radio has the unbending support of ad agencies and media buyers because it allows single source measurement of radio and television as well as the potential of minute-by-minute results. Broadcasters, public and commercial, have been more cautious. Only in Switzerland has electronic measurement been fully implemented, largely through the influence of the public broadcaster, which has had a financial interest in developing the Radiocontrol/Telecontrol watch device, now licensed to GfK.