The largest survey in Public Radio – PRTS5

Registration form is below

We are pleased to announce that, once again, Jacobs Media, in partnership with PRPD, will field our fifth annual Public Radio Tech Survey (PRTS5) in late March.  We’d like to invite your station to be a participant in this research.

In early 2012, an iMA study about mobile, public radio and TV managers named our PRTS surveys their top source for mobile research.  Since 2008, these studies have served as credible resources for public radio to better understand its audience, as well as how they interact with other media, gadgets, and technology.

Last year’s study was well-covered by Marketing Charts, as well as by Current and other publications.  Here's a link to the Marketing Charts article.

For PRTS4, an impressive 49 public radio stations participated, generating over 30,000 responses – a great showing and a key reason why that survey generated strong, trendable responses.  Aggregating a large group of stations keeps the cost very low for each ($500 for PRPD members, $750 for non-members).  In order to encourage smaller broadcasters to participate, we are offering a $100 discount to stations in markets 100 and smaller ($400).

Thanks to our PRTS5 partners for their support

In the 12 months since PRTS4, we’ve seen rapid evolution in this fast-changing space.  It is imperative to know how the audience is evolving so stations can invest and deploy resources wisely in order to make the best possible decisions.  As many of you know, the PRTS surveys provide public radio stations with invaluable insight into how their audiences interact with and use new technology and media.  Because this is the fifth year, we will be able to trend habits and usage patterns, while updating the questionnaire to include new technology, gadgets, and behaviors.

We will also be focusing questions on establishing the respective weight of different platforms on consumption of your brands – by station and by format.  In this way, we can better determine the percentage of your listeners that are accessing your content on broadcast radios, computer streams, mobile devices, as well as podcasts/on demand programming.

The Details:

PRTS5 will be fielded between 3/27-4/19, and as usual, stakeholder stations can choose to launch the survey any time during that period.  As we have done in the past, we will work closely with your web/database person(s) to ensure this is a simple, turn-key procedure for you and your audience.

We will never access your email database - the solicitation email comes directly from you.  We simply provide supply copy ideas for the email and your station's unique linke.  All data is confidential and we do not use or save your member email addresses.

To achieve a minimum of 100 completed interviews, we recommend sending the solicitation email to as many as 10,000 of your database members.  In addition, participating stations have found it useful to include links to the survey on social media pages as well as the station website.

As a stakeholder station, you will receive an array of information not available to non-participants: complete totals for the survey, your format, and your local audience, along with key demographic breakouts.  Additionally, we will include that all-important “Media Usage Pyramid” that displays the hierarchy for your local audience, allowing you to compare it to the national totals.

We also generate a written Executive Summary, and we will conduct a free webinar presentation for stakeholder stations.  A new addition will be the “Content Consumption Pie Chart” so that stations will be able to see (and track) how their audience accesses their content, and from which media outlets.

A Snapshot and Trending

With four of these surveys now under our belt, we are learning (based on your feedback) about the type of data that works best for stakeholder stations.  We received great feedback from last year’s package, and hope to improve upon it for PRTS5.  While it is challenging, given how digital gadgets and usage continue to expand, we will also strive to produce a somewhat shorter questionnaire.

An example of the kind of analysis you’ll see is last year’s PRTS4 infographic, which you can access here

When we introduced PRTS to public radio in 2008, we knew it would have a significant impact.  But as we enter the fifth year, it’s important to emphasize that the success of this project depends on the inclusion of a wide range of stakeholder stations.  Public radio has become reliant on these studies, and the only way to ensure that they continue is to encourage participation, as well as to ask you to share this email with your colleagues.

We need your station's commitment as soon as possible.

While the economy has improved over the past year, we remain sensitive to the financial pressures that public radio stations face, so we’re holding the cost of the survey at $500 for PRPD members (a reduction, as last year’s first timers paid $600).  Non-PRPD member stations can participate for $750. And to encourage smaller broadcasters to participate, we are offering a $100 discount to stations in markets 100 and smaller ($400).

ACT NOW:  Fill out the form below to secure your participation..  If you have additional questions, please contact Lisa Riker at Jacobs Media (lisariker@jacobsmedia.com).  Jacobs Media handles all survey development and hosting details, along with communication with local station marketing, programming, and or web personnel.  Please contact us no later than Wednesday, March 20.  If you have any questions, please call Jacobs Media at (248) 353-9030.

Please fill out the registration form below: