世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at IP simulcast radio. If you’re not sure what that is, join the slim majority of Japanese who don’t know either.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 27th of July 2011 1,086 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.8% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.1% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

IP simulcast radio is simultaneously broadcasting radio over the airwaves and the internet. The BBC don’t call it anything special with just a “Listen Live” label, but the main Japanese rebroadcaster/aggregator, radiko.jp (note it checks your IP address to give you your local stations only, and only for Tokyo and Osaka areas) has “IP simulcast radio” as part of its logo.

Talking of the area lock of radiko, after the earthquake they removed the area block so everyone could listen. And then reintroduced the block on the first of April.

Finally, NHK will start simulcasting their Radio 1 and Radio 2 channels from next month.

Research results

First of all, 74.6% of the sample said they had listened to the radio during the last year. However, I don’t know if that includes people entering a shop with the radio on as background music, which is my only exposure to the medium.

For these 810 people who had listened to the radio in the last year, 80.0% said their listening frequency had not changed since the earthquake, 14.8% said it had increased, and the remaining 5.2% either had it decrease or just couldn’t say.

Q: Do you know about IP simulcast radio, broadcasts being carried over the internet as well as by the traditional airwaves method? (Sample size=1,086)

Know it well	15.9%
Know a little about it	29.2%
Can’t say	3.6%
Hardly know anything about it	16.2%
Don’t know anything at all	35.1%