MUMBAI: Radio Audience Measurement (RAM), launched by TAM Media Research in 2007 for the radio Industry, has expanded its footprint across nine additional Indian cities - Ahmedabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, Indore, Jaipur, Kanpur, Lucknow, Nagpur and Pune.

RAM has also released its first set of findings in these cities based on respondent data collected during May-August 2011.

In the last four years, RAM operated out of the four metros – Bangalore, Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.

TAM CEO LV Krishnan said, "Our commitment to take RAM beyond the four metros has fructified. This time, the RAM roll out is much wider and deeper. These nine cities will throw light to advertisers the interaction radio is bringing to their consumers and also help broadcasters fine tune their basket of programming to these audiences. This will help propel higher commercial viability for the Industry at large. As always, we will work very closely with the ndustry to help them understand the dynamics of this very high potential communication and brand building medium from these markets as well. Like in four RAM metros earlier, we believe that in these nine metros too, RAM’s entry will boost the radio advertising investments."
 
RAM said that the study based on new cities offers some "very interesting trends" about radio listenership or consumption behaviour.

Some highlights are:

The universe size of the newly added nine markets is an impressive 50 per cent of the existing four RAM markets.

Southern markets observe higher FM penetration as compared to northern markets.

On an average, there is 95 per cent FM universe has been reached in a week across all the markets.

Chennai and Jaipur observe 100 per cent weekly reach.

Time spent listening among the nine new markets is comparatively more than the existing four metro markets.

Markets like Nagpur and Jaipur observe 28.29 (hh:mm) and 24.05 (hh:mm) time spent on a weekly basis.

While majority of the newly added nine markets observe heavy in home listening, OOH (out-of-home) listening in existing four metros market is higher compared to new markets.

Indore and Lucknow observe least OOH listening among the new RAM markets.

Majority of the new markets have heavy composition from male audiences whereas existing Mumbai and Kolkata market witness substantial composition from female audiences.

Listenership in northern cities like Delhi and Jaipur are skewed towards higher SECs. Markets like Nagpur and Kanpur are skewed towards lower SECs.

Morning time band observes highest listenership contribution across the day.

Indore market observes highest listenership contribution from mid morning time band.

Listenership contribution on Saturday and Sunday are higher for the new markets whereas in the existing markets Saturday observes least contribution.

Radio ADEX data reflects a very positive change that RAM has brought about in the radio advertising scenario ever since its launch in 2007.

"If one looks at 4 metros advertising numbers for the period of January-June 2011 and compare it with the same period in the year of RAM launch in 2007, ad duration volume grew by 87 per cent, new advertisers entered which resulted in an increase of 42 per cent in the advertiser base; and the number of brands participating in radio advertising grew by 45 per cent," RAM said.