Document T075

Survey on the importance of satellite radio programming and non-programming features for current subscribers

Prepared for CMRRA-SOCRAC Inc., the Neighbouring Rights Collective of Canada, and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada, August 2007

Circum Network Inc. was tasked by counsel to CSI, NRCC, and SOCAN with the design, the implementation and the reporting of a study to measure of the relative importance of various programming and non-programming features of satellite radio in consumers' decisions to subscribe to a satellite radio service and to maintain their subscription.

The study is based on telephone interviews with 1,000 subscribers to satellite radio services in Canada and on a sub-sample of 306 of these subscribers who completed an additional Web survey. The subscriber sample was developed using an automatic dialling-announcing device (ADAD) to place automated calls to a random sample of household telephone numbers. The fieldwork took place between April 9 and May 29, 2007

The study's design included built-in quality controls. First, the wording of the questions as well as the question ordering did not allow for the identification of the programming feature most interesting to the organizations funding this research. Second, neither the interviewers nor the coder was informed of the interests of the clients for this research. Third, the order of blocks of questions was randomly modified, respondent by respondent, to avoid sequencing effects. Fourth, a variety of types of questions and of angles of questioning were used, including strictly open-ended questions, to elicit the true preferences of subscribers. Finally, responses to open-ended questions were recorded to computer-readable sound files and transcribed verbatim outside of the context of the interview.

The findings of the study underscore the importance of music in current subscribers' decisions to initially subscribe and to maintain their subscription.

221 pages, 1.4 Mb [PDF format]

---