There was a time 15 years ago when callout wasn't a programmer's standard tool and final tool of the Hits! Back then most programmers didnt haven't have a comfort zone with callout and instead still relied on at national charts single sales and requests to determine rotations...A handful of programmers in the know rode callout scores and library music testing to big successes...We found that on a 1 to 10 scale, where 1 is the most conservative light listener and 10 is the most active heavy listener and 5 was where the majority of your listeners were ...Callout captured the majority with a good representative balance of light medium and heavy listeners

After those notable successes the industry embraced callout and for the last 10 years, its has become the norm for determining Hit songs...

However because of the onslaught of telemarketing and other calls to the household, and the development of caller ID, its nearly impossible to reach your average person, instead you reach the person who has time to talk to anyone who calls, and that ain't average these days...where the majority of a callout sample represented the majority 10 years ago, I believe today the majority of callout partisans are the light and medium light listeners but doesnt really represent enough of your medium and heavy listners

People considered Online research very very active and not representative of your average listener 3 years ago, when some of the initial online research companies started. However as the majority of your listeners have an email address, and are more and more internet savvy...online research is representative of that huge chunk of your listeners, that callout now misses,..your medium and heavy listeners. These are the people who have busy lifestyles(as most of us do) because they can signon and rate a song anytime they want to day or night. They will participate in an online survey when they'd never welcome a phone call from a callout company let alone be around when that company called them.

Many people also questioned the methodology, calling it polling...but if its done correctly it's just as random with select quotas as any callout companies, which has a database that they work over and over again for their sample...They key to both of these systems is to continue to build your database which online research companies do thru a radio stations own airwaves or thru a databasing program if the radio station has that.

So people say that the person who takes a callout research call is also the person who will accept a diary. This may be true to some extent but regardless this person and the ARB diary keeper is less and less indicatitve of your real audiences, and thats the people in the know keep pushing ARB on using the people meter (with a bigger sample then initially proposed) Also if you play to these most conservative people then you are playing to the past, and a new more targeted station that appeals to your medium and heavy listeners can steal your franchise...

Tradtional callout has become so frustrating for most programmers because it takes up to 10 weeks to identify a hit, Sad thing is most programmers are projecting songs to powers and medium based on national spins....a huge mistake since national spins is just one programmer watching another and less and less based on real research. I know many many songs recently that made it Top 10 that never ever tested in research either traditional callout or online research. Thats one huge advantage that online research has is that it identifys a hit so much faster than traditional callout, I watch so many people who don't have online research, prepare to dump a song that becomes a hit for that station 3-4 weeks later,

For the time being, I recommend using both methodologies, since traditional callout tracks down the most conservative part of your audience and internet research tracks down the more active medium and heavy listeners..with your powers being songs that do well in both.