Latest RAJARs

[DracoM]

What the changes have led me to do is for the first time seriously explore the several other classical music internet stations. No breathless gush, not telling me this is a sparkling and uplifting piece of music before I listen, no or very few instant guests to gush and waffle, just good repertoire seamlessly presented.

Spot anything in that, BBC Trust?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i reckon the jazz audience for the radio broadcast is diminished ..... interesting to know the iplayer stats

[Northender]

I used to listen to Jazz Library, until it was moved.
(I also used to listen to Late Junction until that was shunted deeper into the night).

[vinteuil]

What the changes have led me to do is ....
Spot anything in that, BBC Trust?

What the changes have led me to do is -

listen to more CDs
read more
go for more walks

So that's all good

... all good for me. Not so good for R3 as it's losing a heretofore Loyal Listener

[Lateralthinking1]

I have come to the conclusion that many of these quarterly figures are pretty meaningless. If you accept that the BBC's objective should be to increase listening figures in a competitive industry, which I don't, we might be informed by a 2.038m figure for R3 that many more people listen to R2 rather than R3. We know that anyway and it will always be so. As for the difference between 2.038m, 1.902m and 2.258m, it is trifling and a certain amount of it probably only reflects the variables in quarterly sampling.

Elsewhere, I doubt that the right questions are being asked. It is all very well to say that one kind of breakfast programme might have the effect of holding on to audiences for one kind of mid-morning programme. Similarly, there is that argument about one kind of mid-morning programme attracting an audience which wants to switch over at the end of 'Today' or at the start of 'Womans' Hour'. What they are saying with such thoughts is that they are targeting the non-employed and non 9 to 5s. While there is no doubt that 18 year students, out of work bricklayers, mothers who work in the afternoons, 55 year old ex-stockbrokers and 90 year old senior citizens can all have an interest in typical R3 content, I don't believe for one moment that it would ever be such a cohesive group of people that more of them could be attracted by a twiddling of content. Some you lose. Some you gain.

So you have to ask questions about who wants which sort of output and when. Much of that is about listeners' availability and lifestyles. Many of the non-employed actually go out shopping at around 10am or 11am. As for holding on to the 'traditional' audience, well, you need to look at the pattern of figures for lunchtime, afternoon, evening and weekend programmes, irrespective of changes made to the peak schedule. We don't hear a lot about those. For all I know, they may have remained steady throughout the last decade or have even increased, not least with the advent of the I-Player and Listen Again.

I also think that the BBC needs to start asking when people want to listen to music and why. There is a big difference between disgruntled R3 listeners switching to R4/R4E and them switching to Classic FM. The latter clearly still want music. The former is a hybrid. Some might just prefer speech now. Others might still choose music if the content was different and/or they didn't have to endure commercials. Plus they need to divide out those who get fed up with another playing of Bolero, those who don't want telephone reminiscence, the ones who dislike young woman presenters and those who are attracted to a particular programme elsewhere. They are all different people and again I don't see those distinctions being made. I fear that, without such analysis, all of the number crunching might be just a tick box exercise and of course a nice little earner for those involved.

[french frank]

I have come to the conclusion that many of these quarterly figures are pretty meaningless. If you accept that the BBC's objective should be to increase listening figures in a competitive industry, which I don't, we might be informed by a 2.038m figure for R3 that many more people listen to R2 rather than R3. We know that anyway and it will always be so. As for the difference between 2.038m, 1.902m and 2.258m, it is trifling and a certain amount of it probably only reflects the variables in quarterly sampling.

The difference in recent years between the highest and the lowest is 2.290m (2004) to 1.783m (2007) which is just over half a million for a station which averages about 2m. If Radio 1, 2 or 4 lost 25% off their reach, it would matter!

The Trust has explained its approval of management's strategy to reach out to the broader public by saying that Radio 3's programmes are excellent, so it's 'a shame' that so few people listen to them. What we have to explain to them is that, whether its programmes are 'better' for the changes or 'worse' - they haven't got any more people listening to them, which was the purpose of the strategy. All they have is a station which, for many people, no longer reaches the standards that they require of a dedicated arts station, but whose budget the BBC can chip away at because the strategy isn't working.

Elsewhere, I doubt that the right questions are being asked. It is all very well to say that one kind of breakfast programme might have the effect of holding on to audiences for one kind of mid-morning programme. Similarly, there is that argument about one kind of mid-morning programme attracting an audience which wants to switch over at the end of 'Today' or at the start of 'Womans' Hour'. What they are saying with such thoughts is that they are targeting the non-employed and non 9 to 5s. While there is no doubt that 18 year students, out of work bricklayers, mothers who work in the afternoons, 55 year old ex-stockbrokers and 90 year old senior citizens can all have an interest in typical R3 content, I don't believe for one moment that it would ever be such a cohesive group of people that more of them could be attracted by a twiddling of content. Some you lose. Some you gain.

Whereas what I believe, personally, is that 'targeting' audiences is inappropriate for a station like Radio 3. They should decide what Radio 3, with its current subject scope, should be broadcasting in order to cover the content to the best of its ability. With good producers, knowledge and expertise I think they will 'maximise' their audience: that is, make it as big as possible in light of the content that they're broadcasting. And that's their job.

So you have to ask questions about who wants which sort of output and when. [...] I also think that the BBC needs to start asking when people want to listen to music and why.

This is probably obvious already. It's reflected in the existing listening patterns, which are roughly similar for all major radio stations. Even a hardline view like mine would take that into consideration when drawing up the schedules...

There is a big difference between disgruntled R3 listeners switching to R4/R4E and them switching to Classic FM. The latter clearly still want music. The former is a hybrid. Some might just prefer speech now. Others might still choose music if the content was different and/or they didn't have to endure commercials. Plus they need to divide out those who get fed up with another playing of Bolero, those who don't want telephone reminiscence, the ones who dislike young woman presenters and those who are attracted to a particular programme elsewhere. They are all different people and again I don't see those distinctions being made.

It would be vastly expensive to do this regularly on a large scale. I don't think most licence fee payers would want their money to be going disproportionately on that. They do have smaller focus groups and Audience Councils.

I fear that, without such analysis, all of the number crunching might be just a tick box exercise and of course a nice little earner for those involved.

Ipsos Mori, I think for the market research. RAJAR itself, of course, is wholly owned by the BBC and RadioCentre, the commercial broadcasters group.

[Lateralthinking1]

The difference in recent years between the highest and the lowest is 2.290m (2004) to 1.783m (2007) which is just over half a million for a station which averages about 2m. If Radio 1, 2 or 4 lost 25% off their highest ever reach, it would matter!

The Trust has explained its approval of management's strategy to reach out to the broader public by saying that Radio 3's programmes are excellent, so it's 'a shame' that so few people listen to them. What we have to explain to them is that, whether its programmes are 'better' for the changes or 'worse' - they haven't got any more people listening to them, which was the purpose of the strategy. All they have is a station which, for many people, no longer reaches the standards that they require of a dedicated arts station, but whose budget the BBC can chip away at because the strategy isn't working.

Whereas what I believe, personally, is that 'targeting' audiences is inappropriate for a station like Radio 3. They should decide what Radio 3, with its current subject scope, should be broadcasting in order to cover the content to the best of its ability. With good producers, knowledge and expertise I think they will 'maximise' their audience: that it, make it as big as possible in light of the content that they're broadcasting. And that's their job.

These are all fair comments with which I broadly agree.

This is probably obvious already. It's reflected in the existing listening patterns, which are roughly similar for all major radio stations. Even a hardline view like mine would take that into consideration when drawing up the schedules...
It would be vastly expensive to do this regularly on a large scale. I don't think most licence fee payers would want their money to be going disproportionately on that. They do have smaller focus groups and Audience Councils. Ipsos Mori, I think for the market research. RAJAR itself, of course, is wholly owned by the BBC and RadioCentre, the commercial broadcasters group.

I am less in agreement with these comments. I think what you are referring to in the first are the radio patterns rather than the music patterns. They overlap but are not the same. Taking account of cds, downloads, etc as well as radio, do people listen mainly to music at breakfast time? I very much doubt it.

The BBC Radio Listening Panel of which I was a voluntary member in the early 1980s asked for specific feedback about programme content. Did you like the presenter? Did you like the telephone feature? It was on a scale on 1 to 5 with space for extra comments. I used to complete my monthly book in a hour. I don't think such things should be costly. No doubt had I been Agius or someone I would have asked for £5,000 each time but I did it because I enjoyed it.

[Russ]

RAJAR is live-listening only. For the non-RAJAR stats, the latest available (April 2012) monthly time-shift figures show an increase of 26.4% in R3 catch-up stream requests compared to April last year. The volume of time-shifted listening is however still very small compared to live listening.

Russ

[french frank]

Where does your average of 18.2% come from, Russ?

And just for clarification, the RAJAR figures now include all live listening, don't they (all platforms)?

[Russ]

Where does your average of 18.2% come from, Russ?

It comes from the BBC Radio site usage page. Specifically, 10948538/9262304 = 18.2%. (My inline url reference on the BBC blog didn't appear because of the new BBC iSite blog system, which is complete rubbish.)

The 'April' to 'April' figures will only give a flavour of the trend however, which is why I've asked the BBC to present the figures in a better expanded way.

And just for clarification, the RAJAR figures now include all live listening, don't they (all platforms)?

Yes, at least officially: RAJAR diarists are expected to tick the box when they are listening live, but not tick the box when they are 'listening again'. Silly I know, but in the big scheme of things, it probably doesn't matter too much when time-shifted volumes are still so small compared to live volumes. Politically, the BBC won't/can't insist on time-shifts being included in RAJAR because the figures would inevitably favour those with time-shift technology, i.e. the BBC.

On R3, there's no doubt that a c 25% annual increase in time-shift streams is healthy, but whether c 900k R3 time-shifts per quarter, say 80k per week to put it into a more RAJAR-like frameset, is healthy or not in relation to the station's total reach is probably a more important and interesting question. R4's '10m' audience has 4.2m time-shifted streams per month, whereas R3's '2m' audience has a far lesser proportion. Time-shifting is far more popular for speech programmes than it is for music. R4X's time-shift volume is gigantic compared to its reach.

Russ

[Lateralthinking1]

I am following this discussion with interest. I don't disagree with the broad analysis but it seems to me that there is a bit of a fix. That is, not between BBC stations but between the BBC and others.

The Government expects the BBC now to be interactive, multi-platform, multi-media etc. It judges its effectiveness partially on that basis. It wants to know "can it be a 'modern' corporation?" (!!!) So the BBC adapts and in some way leads. Then it is constrained when in collaboration with the 'go-ahead' (!!!) commercial stations via Rajar from highlighting the time-shift figures.

I am not convinced that there are many - any? - relevant commercial stations without time shift technology. Admittedly, it is not in every case as comprehensive in its coverage as that of the BBC but that is entirely up to them.

And what I do note about those stations is that, irrespective of being small parts of huge private organisations with significant funding from commercials, a number of them require separate payment for access to podcasts etc. So that might well be the reason that they don't want a more accurate comparison rather than not having the technology.

[french frank]

It comes from the BBC Radio site usage page. Specifically, 10948538/9262304 = 18.2%.

I wondered what had happened to those figures - they used to be reported in a press release.

Yes, at least officially: RAJAR diarists are expected to tick the box when they are listening live, but not tick the box when they are 'listening again'. Silly I know, but in the big scheme of things, it probably doesn't matter too much when time-shifted volumes are still so small compared to live volumes. Politically, the BBC won't/can't insist on time-shifts being included in RAJAR because the figures would inevitably favour those with time-shift technology, i.e. the BBC.

Yes, though my feeling is that the BBC listening figures are primarily for internal use, whereas the commercial ones are equally if not more, for promotional purposes: they are available to potential advertisers so that they know which stations and which slots might be best for them, and collected by RAJAR as an independent verifiable source of information.

The electronic data collection is more reliable than diaries for digital listening so I can't see there's much point in RAJAR including them if they're published by the BBC. None of Radio 3's programmes or podcasts feature among the top ones, so it's 25% of not very much of something else that's not very much.

[kernelbogey]

.... The volume of time-shifted listening is however still very small compared to live listening. Russ

I find this surprising as I increasingly listen on a time-shift basis and I would have thought this is/would be a steady trend - to listen when it suits us to listen rather than when it suits the broadcaster to transmit.

I suppose we have to accept the figures - I infer from the above posts that the 'time-shift' numbers come direct from the BBC and are gathered electronically. (Would it benefit them to fudge these...? I can't see how.)

[JanH]

[QUOTE=Firebird;162863]I have a similar story, Norfolk Born. I've taken to listening only (a) when a concert is broadcast (b) when listening to CDs isn't convenient (short car journeys, cooking). I used to be an avid Radio 3 listener, but just can't stand most of it anymore. It isn't just the inanity of the entire morning offerings once TTN is over, but the fact that much of the afternoon/early evening is taken up with Composer of the Week (however worthwhile in some respects, I've never enjoyed it and the rationale for broadcasting the same programme twice within a few hours is infathomable to me) and In Tune, which used to be reasonable value for providing something of mild interest to listen to in the kitchen while I chopped and stirred, but which has these days taken lite to a new level of unbearable liteness of being. (Is anyone else tired of the endless gushing over the Strads of every string player who is interviewed? Isn't it possible to ask people about the music itself?)

On the occasions when I do tune in outside concert times, I generally get annoyed enough I want to throw something at the radio, but that never lasts long--mostly, I just feel sad


Yes, this follows almost exactly my own pattern of "non-listening"..........

We now listen to Classical KUSC, University of Southern California - a good all day classical music programme, decent clear playlist, complete works, pleasant presenters. a pleasure to listen to....

JanH.

[gingerjon]

Super Soaraway Radio 3

According to the news just now Radio 3 has, according to the latest RAJAR, added another 100,000 listeners.

I'm going to tweet my approval.