BBC Radio Blog Feed

Round up: Identity is the crisis can't you see?

2011-07-22T14:43:00+00:00

Bollywood Stars: BBC Asian Network's Tommy Sandhu with Bipasha Basu at IIFA

The BBC Trust is currently reviewing BBC Radio 5 Live and 5 Live Sports Extra. The period for public submissions closed recently and the Trust promises to publish its finding in "due course".

In the meantime, several trade papers are reporting on what the trade body for commercial radio, the Radiocentre, called 5 Live's "identity crisis" in their submission.

Broadcast wrote:

'Commercial radio trade body Radiocentre has accused BBC Radio 5 Live of "suffering from an identity crisis and confusion over its purpose" and called for it to stop branding itself as an entertainment station.'

Radio consultant and ex-5 Live executive Bill Rogers wrote on his blog:

'The Centre's current target is the Richard Bacon show, for doing too much "celebrity and entertainment news". I suspect the authors of this report are only recent listeners to the station, and may be quite young. It's always been there. Hark back to The Magazine, with Diana Madill. Remember Eddie Mair's jousts with Cliff Richard...'

You can download the Radiocentre's submission via Bill Roger's blog post.

You have until Sunday to catch the BBC Asian Network's coverage of the International Indian Film Academy Awards in Toronto on the BBC's Red Button digital TV services. You can also catch photos and videos on the Asian Network website now and extended video footage from this Monday. Maestro Cam and Soloist Cam also return to the Red Button for this season's Proms. More details of both items and other Red Button services here.

On the About the BBC blog the head of Audiences has written a post Measuring quality and reach at the BBC announcing the quarterly publication of audience figures related to, wait for it, quality and reach across all platforms including radio. The first report, covering January to March 2011, makes for happy reading for UK radio executives:

'Overall radio listening remains strong, not just for the BBC but for the wider radio industry. The most recent data release from RAJAR (...) relating to Q1 2011 shows radio to be in better health than ever before with 91.6 per cent of the adult population listening to a UK radio station every week (47m). 68 per cent of UK adults 15+ (35 million) consume at least 15 minutes of BBC Radio in an average week (the highest figure on record) and listeners spend over 16 and a half hours on average per week listening to BBC Radio.'

Read the rest of Measuring quality and reach at the BBC and download the report on the About the BBC blog.

Paul Murphy is the Editor of the Radio blog

John Myers' review of the BBC's popular music stations

2011-06-14T08:42:00+00:00

Today we are making public a report which looks at potential synergies and savings within Radio 1, Radio 2, 6 Music and 1Xtra.

Last year, I asked John Myers - CEO of the Radio Academy and one of the most respected figures in the radio industry - to review how our popular music stations are run and how they work together. The key challenge was to identify possible ways of sensibly reducing costs while protecting the quality of our programmes.

The findings of the report will help us with our current planning as we look to save costs. John's extensive experience in commercial radio meant he could take an informed and objective view of our operations.

He spent six weeks in the networks: interviewing, observing and generally digging around. He was given unrestricted access and met people at all levels of the organisation.

We welcome John's broadly positive report and its acknowledgement of the distinctive, high quality services we offer. It is very good to read John's praise of the outstanding people who work at the radio stations.

Importantly, the report recognises that BBC stations have to deliver against detailed service licences which require significant resources and lead to distinct challenges to those producing commercial radio. In John's words, attempting to simply compare the demands on BBC and Commercial Radio is meaningless: "akin to comparing apples and oranges".

However, this doesn't mean that we can't and shouldn't learn from external best practice - this is the very reason that I commissioned the review. The report has some valuable insights and recommendations which have been fed into our discussions around Delivering Quality First (DQF) - the BBC name for the work that is underway to develop a plan for the period of the next Licence Fee settlement.

While it is too early to speculate on specific outcomes (which would all require BBC Trust approval), our commitment to principles such as simplifying the organisation, reducing unnecessary compliance processes and finding new ways of working has already been stated in public.

Helpfully, John has identified some clear areas where we can look to do things more efficiently, such as improving co-ordination and reducing unnecessary duplication where appropriate.

Just like any big organisation, there are always ways of doing things better and BBC radio should continue to demonstrate that it is brilliant value for money. I want to achieve this while ensuring that we do not see a dilution in quality or a reduction in clear station leadership which is at the heart of our editorial success. This will mean better value for Licence Fee payers while not threatening the programmes that listeners love.

Tim Davie is Director of Audio & Music

Download John Myers' report as a PDF: john_myers_report_june_2011.pdf
Read The Telegraph story: BBC enlists commercial sector help to shake up radio from 28th November 2010.

Sir Michael Lyons on the new licence fee settlement

2010-10-22T12:50:00+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006slnx

In this week's edition of the BBC's in-house newspaper 'Ariel', the main feature is about the heavy workload the BBC's chief operating officer, Caroline Thomson, now has as a result of the recent cull of executive board members. One of her three main responsibilities, it said, was preparing for the renegotiation of the licence fee which was expected to start in 2011 and take a considerable amount of time.

Well hardly had the paper hit the Corporation's corridors than her load suddenly got considerably lighter. On Wednesday the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the licence fee would be frozen for six years. The negotiations were over before they had started.

The deal, which means a 16% cut in the BBC's income, was hammered out in an extraordinary last-minute negotiation, so last-minute that no-one told the Board of S4C, the Welsh language television broadcaster, that the BBC was taking it over. The S4C Chairman is now talking of going to judicial review.

The licence fee-payer is now to pay for the BBC World Service and BBC Monitoring as well as for some local initiatives which are dear to the heart of the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. In the view of some the BBC's independence has been revealed as a mirage since the Corporation has been treated like a Government department caught up in a spending - or rather a cutting - round.

I went to see the Chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons, shortly after the Chancellor had made his Commons speech. Some BBC executives were shell-shocked by the announcements but Sir Michael was determined to put a positive face on the settlement, perhaps because, as a former council leader, he was well aware of the scale of the cuts which had just been imposed on local authorities.

Here is an extended version of my Feedback interview:

Do you think listeners should be consulted or are you happy for the decisions to be made on your behalf?

Roger Bolton is presenter of Feedback

Listen again to this week's Feedback, produced by Karen Pirie, get in touch with Feedback, find out how to join the listener panel or subscribe to the podcast on the Feedback web page.
Feedback is now on Twitter. Follow @BBCFeedback.
Steve Hewlett also interviewed Sir Michael Lyons on this week's Media Show.
The picture shows Sir Michael Lyons, Chair of the BBC Trust.