Nielsen Media Research awarded AMPS/RAMS

Dr Paul Haupt, CEO of SAARF, said, “The awarding of the tender brings to an end six months of intensive debates by stakeholders. The SAARF Board and Tender Committee had to decide on the best options to ensure the future of these key surveys that provide the trading currencies for the print as well as the radio industries.

“Bearing in mind the cost of these surveys and the funding limitations within which SAARF had to operate, financial viability and sustainability were the most important factors that had to be taken into consideration. The award of the contract is conditional on certain aspects being finalised between SAARF and Nielsen.”

Run for five years

The new contract will take effect on 1 January 2009 and run for five years until 31 December 2013.

Dr Haupt noted that important changes will be implemented during the run of the contract to ensure that the AMPS and RAMS surveys provide for the changing environment that we can expect over the next five years. The most important is the change in the AMPS methodology from computer-assisted personal interviewing (CAPI) to double screen CAPI, which will enhance the quality of the survey even further and resulted from recommendations by an international audit of the survey. This change will also enable SAARF to start working on improvements in the measurement of the readership of newspapers and magazines.

Another important change is the lowering of the age of inclusion in the AMPS survey from the current 16 years to include all people from the age of 15 years and older. The AMPS sample will also be increased to 25 000 per annum, making it possible to do two full national AMPS waves per year, something which is of great importance to SAARF stakeholders.