BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility Feed

Talking music

Sharon Mair — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 15:18:45 +0000

BBC Radio Scotland Music Extra was a pop-up digital station showcasing the diversity of Scottish music and artists leading up to St Andrew’s Day 2016. Station manager Sharon Mair ensured audiences were at the heart of its plans.

‘This relationship with the audience is really honest and a privilege to have – I hope it will shape whatever we do in the future’

Nine weeks before the pop-up station launched, we invited in about 40 audience members from different generations and backgrounds with one thing in common – they all loved music.

Through BBC Outreach, we worked with the audience before the schedules were nailed down and we let the audience into the secret of BBC Radio Scotland Music Extra pop up service.

This was crucial because we were saying to people they could help us shape what they wanted as an audience. It was a very honest forum with people saying what they liked and what they didn’t – tone and sound – and out of that came several things we absolutely took on board. I used this detail to help create the schedules that went to air on 23rd November.

The audience told us very clearly they wanted knowledgeable presenters who knew the music they were taking about, would make the audience feel included in the conversation, and were as passionate as them about music.

Audiences helped shape the content and schedules of BBC Radio Scotland Music Extra

A key message was that people wanted familiar music but they wanted to be surprised as well – a chance to discover new music, to be educated and feel knowledgeable and connected with what they’re listening to.

The conversation really reinforced the importance of discovering content that you've never heard before and about championing an artist or piece of music you've just been introduced to. By doing this it would enable a much deeper and personal connection with our audience.

Our audience group told us they want music presented rather than announced – by broadcasters who show a massive passion for music and with gravitas – who know the arrangers, the publishers, the writers of the music, the stories behind the music – they’re not just reading the title of a song.

They also wanted musicians to be curators of content that influenced and inspired them.

So we have tried out new presenters, musicians and artists that are really respected in their own fields, but may never have presented programmes in this way before - such as the strand, The Artist Selects. Kathryn Joseph was Scottish Album of the Year winner 2015 and she selected an hour of music that was just beautiful, about her influences and inspirations.

We brought in people like Findlay Napier and John McCusker and Martin Green of Lau – these kind of artists are so well respected in their own field and when they opened up their thoughts about musical inspiration it brought a different aspect to the audience.

Have a listen to Midge Ure and discover the influences on him and in Band Aid.

In the workshop the audience flagged up a love of Soul, Ska, Reggae, Dance, and of using presenters in different ways. We took all of this on board in the schedules.

The reasons we delivered this station were to support and showcase musicians and the music industry in Scotland, to promote digital listening, to bring our evening music programmes to a daytime audience, and to find out if this really is the kind of station our audience wants.

The station’s music has not just been about traditional and folk music and what people maybe stereotypically think comes from Scotland, this has been about a modern contemporary Scotland.

On 2nd January BBC Radio Scotland will become a music station for the bank holiday and we’re using the best of Music Extra all day on the schedule then, plus people will have a chance to hear some of the content across our festive schedules.

This has now become very much a dialogue with our audience. The morning the station launched I wrote to all the audience participants to ask for their comments during the eight-day pop-up, and they emailed and posted their honest thoughts. When we invite them back in for a debrief it will be with an even larger group of our station staff.

It’s a privilege to have this relationship and I hope it will shape whatever we do in the future.

BBC Radio Scotland Music Extra was a pop-up digital station running from 23-30 November 2016; programmes are available to listen to after transmission for 30 days.

BBC Outreach & Corporate Responsibility brings the BBC closer to its audiences - particularly those audiences we have identified as harder to reach - with face-to-face activity, community support and staff volunteering.

Memories and Conversations

Jane Fowler — Thu, 14 Jul 2016 18:16:31 +0000

Jane Fowler and colleagues found a new way to use the BBC’s archives to prompt conversations between families and carers and people living with Dementia.

'What drew particular praise was the deliberate inclusion of the voices of those with Dementia edited as little as possible'

Our event, Exploring Dementia, looking at BBC Scotland’s recent season on Dementia, was the start of a new conversation about the disease, very much seeking the advice of those with an in depth understanding of the condition, its complexity and its impact.

As Managing Editor, my role includes working as executive producer on BBC Radio Scotland features and major projects. Here I was working with two colleagues – Liza Greig and Tommy Weir - who are passionate about the public service remit of the BBC and how we can use our resources to offer practical advice and personal stories that help make a difference.

The season, Memories and Conversations – New Approaches to Dementia, ran for five weeks on BBC Radio Scotland, and was developed in close collaboration with Alzheimer Scotland and the University of the West of Scotland. It involved radio, television, online and our outreach cross-generational team, the LAB. It was the vision of Liza Greig, a radio producer in the Edinburgh Features team.

One new approach was to use favourite moments from BBC programmes as a way of starting conversations between families and carers and those with Dementia. All the archive used in the project and clips from the programmes are available on the BBC Radio Scotland website at Memories and Conversations.

Another approach was Your Memories, a pilot on BBC Taster where you type in your biographical details and up comes a slideshow of your life in film, photos and audio.

We wanted to get feedback on this and the other radio and television content – discussions, documentaries and phone-ins on every strand in the schedule - and to learn from it.

Tommy Weir, Marketing Executive of BBC Scotland’s Diversity team, supported by the Diversity Board, devised and organised the event which brought together external organisations and BBC staff to discuss our recent content – and to suggest ways of working together to move forward to serve the sadly growing number of people in our audiences who are affected by the condition.

About 70 people attended, from many fields including health, reminiscence, carers, arts, sports, libraries and museums, local government and science, as well as staff from across BBC Scotland and BBC Outreach.

From the moment people arrived, there was a real buzz with everyone talking and keen to share their suggestions and discuss these with others.

For staff, it was highly valuable to understand what these organisations are doing in order to explore working together.

The feedback to the season was very positive. What drew particular praise was the deliberate inclusion of the voices of those with Dementia who sometimes repeat themselves, sometimes stumble, and to edit these as little as possible.

The suggestions made on how we could develop and improve our content were immensely helpful. These included more programmes on the diagnosis of the condition and advice on how to live as well as possible with it, especially in the early years.

There was advice on language to be used – and avoided. During the campaign we had asked staff not to use the phrase – ‘suffering from Dementia’. As Anne Macdonald, who has a rare form of the condition which affects her virtual visual processing, said to us with emphasis, “I don’t suffer from Dementia. I live with Dementia. And I’ll fight to do as much as I can for as long as possible.”

We were also challenged to make sure our content reached as broad an audience as possible. Liza and Tommy spend as much time as they can working outside the BBC, listening to the experiences of others.

But bringing people together for such a lively session, chaired by Sally Magnusson whose mother had Alzheimer’s, allowed for a very honest and open conversation and left us feeling genuinely energised in moving forward.

There is so much to do.

For November, we are planning programmes and discussions on isolation, and the experience of this event has given us real food for thought as we start. We will work closely with many of those we have met at this event. We are truly grateful to all those who gave up their time to join in.