ASA Adjudication on IUR-FM Ltd
Date:
7 December 2011
Media:
Internet (on own site)
Sector:
Leisure
Number of complaints:
1
Complaint Ref:
A11-163879
Ad
Claims on a website for a local radio station, in June 2011, stated "IUR-FM broadcasts locally on 101.4FM, and globally online, with over 8,000 listeners locally and over 5,000 friends online".
Issue
Northern Media Group challenged whether the claim "over 8,000 listeners locally" was misleading and could be substantiated.
CAP Code (Edition 12)
Response
IUR-FM explained that the licensed broadcast area for IUR-FM covered 80 square kilometres but that the station could be listened to over a much wider geographic area. IUR-FM said they had a strong signal in the population centres of Newry City, Warrenpoint, Rostrevor and Rathfriland. They said the combined population of those areas was 38,956, but that figure did not take into account the rural communities and settlements between those centres. IUR-FM explained that they did not use that figure to calculate their listener numbers, but instead used the lower population figure of 27,433 for Newry City only. They provided copies of the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NINIS) 2001 census area profiles in support of both sets of population figures.
IUR-FM explained that the listener figures were based on research that they had commissioned from a respected independent research agency. They said when the percentage of people who listened to IUR-FM, as established by that research, was applied to the official population statistic for Newry City, the result was a figure well over the 8,000 listeners claimed in the ad. IUR-FM said they were understating their listener figures by using the smaller population figures, and therefore did not believe the claim was misleading. They provided a summary of that research.
Assessment
Upheld
The ASA noted from the documentation provided by IUR-FM that the research was conducted in 2008, and considered that it was not suitable to support a claim likely to be understood by consumers as referring to current listener numbers. Notwithstanding that, we also noted that the survey involved stopping passers-by in a shopping centre. We considered that the survey methodology was not sufficiently robust to produce results that could be extrapolated to the wider, local population, and were concerned that we had not seen evidence that those results were statistically significant. We acknowledged that it might not be practicable for relatively small community radio stations to use the services of for example RAJAR (Radio Joint Audience Research), but we did expect to see robust audited audience figures if radio companies were making representations to advertisers and listeners about their listener numbers. Because we had not we concluded that the claim "Over 8,000 listeners locally" had not been substantiated and was misleading.
The ad breached CAP Code (Edition 12) rules 3.1 (Misleading advertising) and 3.7 (Substantiation).
Action
The ad must not appear again in its current form. We told IUR-FM not to refer to listener figures in their advertising unless they held robust audited audience figures to support the claim.
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