Victory for Agri-Marketing in Canada

To review, the BBM (Bureau of broadcast measurement) here in Canada, responsible for measuring radio listenership and television viewership across the country, recently changed the occupation codes, grouping farmers and ranchers in with all other primary industries.

The argument has been that, compared to fishermen, lumberjacks and miners, farmers and ranchers are a distinctly seperate group. Plus we have a 50 million dollar advertising industry marketing specifically to farmers, and even our own agri-marketing association (CAMA).

Subsequent to their committee meetings in mid-September, to follow is the response from BBM:

Both the Radio Technical Committee (RTC) and the Television Research Committee (TVRC) have approved splitting the Primary Industry category into Agriculture Industry and Other Primary Industry. The changes will be implemented in the radio diary in Spring 2010, and in TV diary in Fall 2010.

The changes will be implemented in the PPM questionnaire effective September 2010. However it is important to note that the data will not be available for release in PPM until September 2011, as it takes one year to refresh the PPM qualitative data.

The following is a comment I got from an insider that attended the meetings:

I wish I could claim all the credit, but when I introduced the topic I said, “Good, we need this. Who will make the motion?” It took about 2 seconds to get 3 people wanting to move the change.

Both measures were passed in about 2 minutes.

Thanks for your push, you were the one to make it happen, for all our benefit.

I am ecstatic with the recognition that the agriculture is still a valid marketing category in Canada, and to be able to continue using occupational-specific data to measure radio listenership and TV viewership in this country. And because the occupational data has been added to meters too, the future is also assured.