Read this: The Future of the BBC, Radio 4 Audience Research and Miners’ Strike Series

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music radio podcast

hello, I'm Andrea catherwood and welcome to feedback.

the Radio 4 schedule changes have kicked in so you might be listening to feedback at it's new time of 3:30 on a Thursday

though the Sunday programme hasn't changed.

Wellcome whenever you're listening

this week are the days of the BBC licence fee numbered.

If so, what might replace it I believe that the BBC should be universal for everyone.

funded through general taxation

But I also believe it's time for advertising and sponsorship to play a part.

We'll hear some of your reviews on the future of the BBC and look at funding alternatives.

with the head of the journalism school at Cardiff University

and on that new Radio 4 schedule.

The head of audiences for BBC audio is here to explain what part audience research plays in making those changes.

We have no interest in sort of stacking the research results for the BBC we genuinely want the BBC to succeed and an X minor and an academic.

Step into the voxbox.

To share their take on strike boy the radio for series are by the 1984 miners strike.

15 minutes each section

just scratch the surface.

There is a lot more.

underneath

that

needs document about and discussing

more from Neil and Gavin later, but first.

early this week the BBC licence fee rose by 10 Pines

it's now 169 pounds 50.

Well this comes after a two-year freeze.

The BBC says it's been left with a massive funding gap.

More cuts to services and staff are inevitable.

At the same time the director general Tim Davie has announced the biggest ever consultation on how the BBC should be funded.

And feedback listeners have been quick to add their voices.

To what's likely to be a long and heated debate?

Hello, my name is George and I live in Queensland in Australia now.

I think the BBC would best capitalise.

On its quality and reached globally.

by moving like Netflix to a subscription model

but run as a not-for-profit through a trust.

Which is provided with some government funding?

for example

National Trust model

I think it's absolutely vital that the BBC

remains independence

that is it's not for profit and able to report fairly freely and without threat to seen and Putin's Russia or cheese China

David Parry from Enfield in North London

when people have myriad content streams to choose from the notion that one organization should impose a tax.

And it is a tax on consumers irrespective of what and how they watch simply because they own a TV set.

Is absolutely indefensible?

The BBC should move to a subscription service for funding.

It could potentially have millions of subscribers from around the world.

The panel advising on the future funding model of the BBC has also been announced.

it includes amongst others so Peter basil former chairman of ITV

and David elstein Channel 5's first chief executive.

Matt Walsh shared of the school of journalism at Cardiff University joins me now.

But way back when Margaret Thatcher wanted to look at the licence fee and was keen to run ads.

She set up a panel it came back.

strongly in favour of maintaining the licence fee

now of course we know the media landscape has changed a lot since then.

Do you think this panel is more likely to advocate for Change

Yes, I think it's very likely that this panel will want to push for change if they have the time to carry out the piece of work that they've been tasked with.

One has to bear in mind.

That there is not long to go until we're due to have a general election.

If there is a change of government.

Will the new government wish to continue the work that this panel is to is is carrying out.

It's not at all clear to me that they will want that given the makeup of the panel, which includes people who've been press advisors to 10 Downing Street and to the conservative government.

Now BBC director general Tim Davey has said that he wants the public to get involved in the consultation process.

And on that subject one of our listeners David Parry has said.

You could do worse than create a panel of people selected at random much like jury service from current licence fee payers.

and get their views on all things BBC

From how it's run to what it creates to how it pays people?

Use the people who actually fund the BBC to sense check your ideas and to find out what they actually want.

and then give it to the

it's really important to understand exactly what viewers and listeners want from the funding process.

And what they what they want to get out of the BBC at the end of the end of this consultation?

So yes any process that allows the viewers and listeners to feed into this process will be really really important and really really valuable.

I expect that the BBC's management and government will want to hear those voices loudly.

If the licence fee is to be replaced, what are the main contenders? What should we be looking at for the future of the BBC the first of them is a is a household Levy so this might be something.

That's attached to say your council tax and might be at a different level for different people depending on how big big your houses.

There's also the possibility of a direct grant from government so a direct funding from government at the very beginning of all of this Lourdes wreath that when the BBC was fined was very anti the idea of of the government actually funding the BBC that's one of the reasons.

We had a licence fee in the first place.

Isn't it? That's absolutely right and the Independence of the BBC is a cure core value that has to be preserved.

as part of this process

And also it puts you in contention with.

Say the health service.

It's very difficult I think for people to justify the salaries of TV producers if you're also if it means cutting back on nurses and doctors.

There's also the idea that you might also have some form of subscription model as well.

So this might be the idea of perhaps having a total subscription putting the BBC in time behind a paywall.

Bit like Netflix does at the moment.

the problem with subscription though is that it undermines one of the core values of the BBC and of public service Media

which is universality so it's the idea that we must have something for everybody as part of as part of the makeup of the BBC

they're also some really big technical problems here as well and in fact the last time the government looked at this last time Parliament looked at this in 2021.

They they said that they couldn't be a change to some form of subscription service until the late 2030s.

because you can't put subscriptions services on Freeview

and you can't put Radio behind a paywall.

here is listener Joshua Fitzpatrick

I believe that the BBC should be universal for everyone.

funded through general taxation

But I also believe it's time for advertising and sponsorship to play a part.

It already does this with podcasts.

It needs to commercialize and monetize more of its content one of the fun problems.

We have advertising is that it does seem to again undermine some of the some of the issues with the BBC of avoiding commercial interests.

Within the within the content that's produced for the UK domestic market.

That's an issue for the commercial Media in the UK too.

Do they really want the BBC to be competing for add inventory, alongside?

the commercial radio stations or commercial publishers that could be the case

that certain services could be privatized and spun out and to become commercial entities and you you spin out say Radio 2.

As a private entity and supported by advertising but it would have to make a lot of money through that advertising.

In order to fund the service of a type.

That we see today.

Richard Sharpe the BBC's former chairman said this

on the today podcast recently

I do believe there is an opportunity to have.

some limited differential

in terms of how consumers pay?

For it where the lower income comes.

still have the opportunity to benefit from the BBC

the problem with that is is one of universality.

It's what is the the core service that's being supplied to people.

Is it just news? Is it is it news and cement entertainment programmes?

all of those things would seem to me to undermine some of the universality that elements of the BBC

However, I think it's Whatever solution.

We eventually end up with is likely to have as a feature of it a slightly more progressive way of paying for for the BBC at the moment.

We pay a flat rate everybody pays the same so I think it's likely that we will end up in situation where there is a sliding scale.

To pay the based on household income but exactly how that means testing will take place.

Isn't yet clear?

But if you were to tie it to something like council tax.

Then it seems to me that that that's already sort of taken care of as part of the mix.

And you're not requiring the BBC to set up a complicated means testing system.

alongside

the one that already exists

and what about other radio Services Radio 4 of course and Radio 3 I mean there would be a lot of challenges for radio wouldn't there if we lost the licence fee?

Yes, and I think one of the sort of.

Solutions to this could be just a view radio is a bit of a loss leader.

and say we accept that we're not really going to make money from Radio

and we are going to focus at our attention on digital content or on TV broadcast content.

A change from the licence fee potentially could be quite bad news for the radio Services that the BBC because it's not entirely clear how they could be funded.

Under some of the some of the more.

Sophisticated commercial mechanisms that are being discussed here that sit aside from Millie just his money from the government.

I want to leave you with the thoughts of our listener who says.

this is Sasha

given the collapse of our industry outside of the BBC

It shows the funding structure slash licence fee is essential to keep the UK in the forefront of excellence and program making.

We should fight to keep the BBC free from advertising models.

Is there any chance that we're going to keep the licence fee or are those days over?

Well around about half of the public service broadcasters in Europe still do have some form of licence fee.

It is not something that is completely archaic and

people do still think that it has value.

The problem, is is that I think that the current government is is?

And that is pushing the argument along.

So, I think people will will be looking at this and trying to work out what the best possible solution will be to replace the licence fee and coming up with lots of different models.

But every time it has been looked at in the past.

The conclusion is reached.

that the licence fee is the least worst option of available of the different options that we've discussed a bit like democracy Matt Walsh

head of journalism a Cardiff University thanks so much for joining me on feedback.

And I'm very keen to know what you think about the future funding of the BBC it is after all absolutely core to what we do here on feedback.

So do get in touch of like that or indeed anything to do with BBC audio.

Find yourself a quiet spot.

And record a WhatsApp voice note you can send it off.

to 03 triple 333 triple four five double four

or you can ring that number and leave a voice message.

Or email is feedback at bbc.co.uk.

And it's at BBC R4 feedback.

on social media

Now you may remember a few weeks ago Radio 4 is controller mohit buckeyebar.

Join me on feedback to discuss the new refresh schedule.

Did you consult audience at the audience on this we did audience research? That's how we consult the audience audience researchers Consulting the audience.

We we find out we look at audience.

Listening behaviour and we also talk to people.

Well, that schedule is now upon us and although it's early days will undoubtedly be hearing more of your thoughts on those changes throughout the series.

But one immediate question many listeners wanted an answer to.

Was high that audience research.

Referred to by the controller was carried out.

I'll enjoying Now by Alison winter who is the BBC's head of audiences radio and education.

Alison as you know listeners are intrigued to learn more about how that research is done.

Here for example is John Henderson from Frome consultation would be publicising the changes.

to the general public

some months in advance.

audience research involves Consulting only a limited number of people

he is quite right there actually ongea.

But I wouldn't phrase it exactly as he has I think as a researcher what I would say.

Is that research is a discipline and it refers to the robust collection and interpretation of data in a variety of ways?

But chiefly it's undertaken in an objective way.

So when you've got to consultation, it's not necessarily administered by a research or someone with an experience it can be anyone tends to be a dialogue as well.

and it's not by it's nature representative because it is relying on the views of those people who are motivated to get in touch so

we will always supplement that with audience research because it's important for us to get that representative view.

Of the whole population that we're seeking to serve.

So Alison in terms of these schedule changes was it consultation was at audience research, or was it both?

Now a days, I'm sure your listeners won't be surprised to hear this so much data.

We've got available about.

What people are listening to who they are?

When they're listening how they're listening.

And we get a lot of that from radar, which I spoke about last time on feedback.

That's the live listening data, but also increasingly.

We've got access to all the data from sounds and that gives us the on-demand.

version of events as well

on top of that we can often supplement that listening data with ad-hoc research that we commissioned.

And that's really to get onto the skin of that behaviour and that's when we talk to people.

And that's either in focus groups or it could be one to ones or it could be.

by means of a serve a

in this case we were using both the listening data and then talking to people.

And the other one was speaking to rely.

to radio for listeners

about their Sunday morning routines.

And their listening habits.

Okay, let's talk about those Sunday morning routines because of course a lot of listeners.

Are asking about that Archers move the omnibus?

Going from 10:00 a.m.

On a Sunday morning to 11:00 a.m.

What did you find out from the audience there?

What we have seeing was that listeners and the audience tended to be strong in the morning.

first thing

and then we would lose them at a certain point.

And then they weren't finding their way back.

And what we knew was that those listeners.

We were losing.

They would probably really like the content we had later on in the morning.

But they just couldn't find their way back and they didn't know it was there.

Do you mean they were switching off at 10:00 a.m.

When the Archers on the bus came on?

we get people switching on for The Archers

and we get some people switching off what we were seeing over time.

Is that switching off?

Was getting more and more intense and we were saying more people switching off.

Another listener Laurence has asked.

Where are the results of the audience polling presented?

Is it truly representative?

it's a really good question so

it tends to be that the research is carried out for us by third party research agencies like YouGov and ipsos, Mori

They know full well that the BBC has a mission to be universal and they really understand the importance of representation.

And that's about not just hearing from listeners who contact us although that is something that is an element.

But it is about reaching out to listeners.

Who may not want to or have the means necessarily to always get in touch.

and that's on top of

I think probably the representation you in the listeners are talking about which is making sure.

That we're representative of whatever population it is we're seeking to speak to.

the the UK why population of the Radio 4 audience

that it's representative in terms of a known factors around demography which is things like age and gender ethnicity.

Where people live social grade or those sorts of things so I think in almost all cases the work that those research functions will do.

Is to help their company succeed so it's not particularly common that you see that research, published elsewhere.

I have to say we probably do publish more of it from the BBC than say our commercial media company competitors.

I suppose the BBC paid for that research and they don't want to give it away exactly now another listener at Terry Pearson got in touch to say anyone who knows anything about the psychology of this sort of research.

Knows it has more to do with how the questions opposed.

I think it's important for me to say that myself and my colleagues.

We have no interest in sort of stacking the research results for the BBC we genuinely want the BBC to succeed.

In terms of how it's done.

It's really fascinating perhaps some of your listeners have been involved with this where.

Usually after work they gathered together with other participants.

in a

higher Hall somewhere or the research agencies offices and they take part in what is the traditional focus group?

What's happens since covid is that has gone online and for us in the BBC it's been fantastic?

Because we can speak to that representation of the public or the audience that we want to.

So you can speak to people from across the UK we can have people from Scotland and Wales and Cornwall and the other benefits.

I think when people are in their own bedrooms or their kitchen at home.

They can be brutally honest.

So we really hear exactly what they think.

Alison give us an idea of what kind of questions that you are asking people in those kind of groups.

We wanted to see in particular.

I think how podcasts were working with or maybe starting to substitute for live radio.

So we went in and we asked them to complete Diaries across their days of the week and then we also asked them to record who they were with.

What they were doing at the time?

So one of the findings that we got out of that for example was.

Identifying this range of routines and needs that really drove audio listening across the week.

And one of them was this shift if you think of the weekday.

we could see

a really dominant need first thing in the morning for

give me information.

Bring me up to date.

And almost for people to learn and take information on board.

And then as they went through that weekday morning that would really shift into a need for escapism and perhaps have a little.

Speech audio treat as It Gets a bit later in the day.

That's really interesting did some of that data influence.

The decision for example to move book of the week from 9:45 to 11:45 in the morning.

I think that's a really good example book of the week is and specially interesting genre because it's about booked readings and we've seen this genre really trained quite dramatically since the entrance of something like audible into the market.

if we look at the most popular book readings on sounds that we've got at the moment audio books things like

meet David Sedaris

or the light we carried by Michelle Obama really popular book readings.

Being consumed to all different times of the day.

So all of this fed into the thought that if we moved book of the week out of that more information driven audio need in the morning and moved it a bit later.

It might find people who've got time to indulge in it and really enjoy it as fully as we hope they might.

But you don't from what I'm what I'm hearing from you.

You don't ask specific questions like

should we shorten in touch from 19 to 15 minutes? That's not how this works.

Now I think if you went and asked people.

In a focus group whether that's online or face to face about the length of programs.

Or the times you would probably get as many answers as there were people in that room and you may want to miss some bigger things like the needs that are underlying that the routines that would help us perhaps take a different angle on it.

What we will do in the audience research team is continually monitor what's going on?

And I'm a big fan of feedback.

I'm always listening to it to hear what you're listeners are saying I think that is a vital input and alongside that we're looking at radar data.

We're looking at digital data and not just these changes that have been made.

But all elements of our schedules were just constantly looking at them to make sure that we think they're doing the best for as many people as possible.

Alison winter ahead of audiences radio and education, thank you so much for answering listeners questions about audience research.

now

even Mr Scargill was shouted out when he arrived to a lobby of hundreds of Minors

a clip there from the recent 10 part Radio 4 Series strike boy

it followed Mark Watson the son of a striking Nottinghamshire miner.

As he uncovered the motivations and memories of some of those involved in the 1984 miners strike.

and examined it's lasting Legacy

and for this week's box.

two listeners who have their own personal connections to the strike

give us their take on the series.

My name is Neil Sergeant I was 20 year old at the start of the great minus strike.

and I worked at the old man colony just outside, Barnsley

My name is Kevin hawkton, and I'm a PhD researcher at the University of Glasgow researching news media coverage of the minus rank.

From BBC Radio 4 this is strike board.

episode 1

called Dust In Our veins

you have a son asking his father about the strike and he didn't know too much about the strike although he was a boy during the strike.

He's still wanting to find out more about the strike and what.

What really occurred during this times?

So for me, it was a chat between generations.

And I think that was explored quite well during this series.

So if I was the son of a working line and would you have spoken to me?

no

we personally

15 minutes each section

Just scratch the surface there is a lot more.

underneath

that

Needs document about and discuss it I'm not a journalist or a podcaster.

I just want to try to make sense of what happened to my community.

to the Country

from all sides before it's too late whether the first 30 were so written Nottingham minus.

a cringed about like

there's still bitter.

I think it gave it some honest and some credibility.

It will communicative.

That will never ever see again.

It's created its own fault life if you like.

And I think that's really why we had to go.

That's done.

In my eyes is a little legend.

To live in an area where he was in.

they might not at

the stripe more than added in balance the way it most of them might as well on strike and I cannot.

I cannot imagine what he went through in the 12 months it must have been.

around us

mine is hospitalized.

They were imprisoned.

it's

a battle of the entire minus dispute

minus have an issue with BBC because

on the evening of the Battle of agree on the 18th of June

footage was reversed to show.

a misrepresentation of events

and that the Miners will portrayed as being aggressive first.

Rather than the police which is what really happened.

And so for them.

It's a it's a travesty it was it outrageous really.

This should really if put that into the context to show.

These are the tips on the Battle of all grief 1984.

but

really this is part of edited footage.

Which give it completely misleading reality events?

Just not me.

I think the mining community is would.

love to see

just Justice we're not applaud.

It's or anything like that.

We just want to choke.

I've never really understood how the strike ended.

There was no deal to got the pit closures.

All the 20,000 job losses are kick the whole thing off.

So there's Pete's the idea that 20 pits were sent to close.

in my 904 with 20,000 jobs lost

I mean, it's been long known now since 2012.

I think it is inside the real number was 75 pits.

With the loss of 90,000 jobs.

For my dad.

That battle for Britain so I will never be over.

I have more than conversations.

I've been having with old Minors

if it failed up their battles in the minus strike still being 40 years on.

As soon as they should have been.

a part 11

About how this is still carried on?

It's still that mean to us this still.

punisher's

anybody talking about 85.85 is good.

Because it's educational.

But we've got to talk about it.

We've got to

see what the social.

aspect of the strike did to the north of England

it's a younger generation that has a lot of questions to ambient answer to what really happened during the strike.

So for the series I'm BBC Radio forward to to start to touch on these topics is important.

We're really scratching the surface.

But it was a good series in terms of starting that conversation and needs to happen.

Well, thank you to Neil and Gavin for giving us their views.

And on delighted to say that the producer of strike boy Simon mabin joins me now.

Simon I wonder what did you think of what you've just heard?

Yeah, I was really tough that.

That they were into it and it was really interesting to hear some of their.

Perspectives and things that they thought that were missing maybe the main criticism I I took from what they said was.

They wanted more which I'm going to also take as a compliment they mentioned the credibility.

That Mark brought to the series it was interesting to use.

Somebody who was neither a podcaster nor a journalist.

Just explain to me what that process was like.

a colleague of mine was

was looking into ways of telling the story.

And came across a Blog that.

Mark the presenter had written way back in 2004 and we got in touch with him and and kind of sounded him out about this idea.

And he was really enthusiastic and as I think comes across in the series.

Genuinely curious-- to to find out more about what happened.

One of the criticisms that was loved by our listeners.

Was the representation of all grief and there was no mention of the fact that the BBC was accused of reversing footage to make the Miners to cast The Miners really in a bad light.

And I wondered did you consider?

Putting that into the strike boy.

I think it's important that we did talk about the role of Media reporting of all grief around the time we were using some of the archive from the BBC Reporting and did mention the BBC in particular.

In that it had a role in shaping public opinion particularly after all grief.

It was really important that we acknowledged that.

But we did want to give as much time as possible.

To the people who are actually there are all grieve.

Experiencing it first-hand and that was a kind of guiding principle through the series you mentioned that.

20 pits were set to close.

We now know that in fact it was.

to be 73 pits

that were due foreclosure.

Why did you use the 20 figure rather than the 73 figure?

If we'd have more time absolutely we could have talked about.

It later emerging that there was a plan for more closures in in subsequent years and some debate about.

how different that was to the

Previous course of Pit closures over recent years so there's you know there's there's more to talk about there, but the decision was to focus on something that was.

An announcement that was in the public domain at the time.

I wonder what stayed with you and what you want listeners to take away from this.

I mentioned in in a series that I spoke to people.

Who told me about their experiences but?

After some thought decided they didn't want to appear in the series because they were still worried 40 years on.

about the consequences for them and their families including fears of physical violence

and that's really stayed with me that that was really striking.

But I hope something that people will take away from it as well.

Is that those are the people who lived through the strike and the as new Generations come along? I think that there's hope that people will be able to to move on from those divisions.

Well, thanks to Simon mavin the producer of strike boy and all 10 parts are available now on BBC signs.

As of course is feedback.

You can search for any episode on BBC signs.

Or just click to subscribe and have each appear in your podcast feed automatically.

Well, that's all from me for this week.

Thank you very much for listening and for giving us your feedback.

goodbye

Why do some of the brands we love most hit dizzy Heights but then ultimately end up?

Toast I'm Sean Farrington presenter of the BBC Radio 4 Series toast which unpick what went wrong with big business ideas.

An examines why there were so popular in the first place we hear from people directly involved in building a Brand's Fortunes everybody still wanted it to work and so I saw an opportunity to try and make that happen.

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listen

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