Audience councils

[Angle]

The BBC Trust Audience Councils are looking for new members.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/who_we_are/audience_councils/

The site speaks for itself and might be of considerable interest to some of us here.

Don

[Flosshilde]

But only in England.

[teamsaint]

But only in England.

and you are retired.
Or like to spend your holidays sitting on councils.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

But only in England.

Why do you say that?

[Flosshilde]

"The Audience Council England is currently looking for new members for each its 12 regional panels."

& the bit on the Scottish Council says that they will post information on recruitment on the website, & there isn't any at the moment. I didn't check Wales & N. Ireland, but, given the quote above, I assume they're not either.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I see.

[french frank]

& the bit on the Scottish Council says that they will post information on recruitment on the website, & there isn't any at the moment. I didn't check Wales & N. Ireland, but, given the quote above, I assume they're not either.

Strong competition, I expect, Floss. When it came to the Audience Council reports on Radio 3, the Council for Scotland was streets ahead of any of the others, which all gave the impression of the blind leading the blind.

[Flosshilde]

So, you up for it, ff? Or would you have to go incognito?

[Angle]

This is an opportunity to get down to putting things right. So many opinions about the present performance of Radio 3 and of its future, have been expressed on this site, over the years that I don't know how anyone can resist.

The competition will, indeed, be stiff but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Apply. As I shall.

[Flosshilde]

I wnder how much the agenda (formal & informal) is set by the Council rather than the BBC? & How much time devoted to radio, & how much of that to R3.

Not much, is my guess.

[french frank]

So, you up for it, ff? Or would you have to go incognito?

I think I would need to wear a false moustache when I filled in the application form, and call myself Nadine Hirsute!

The only reservation that I have is that Council members are supposed to be a broadly representative section of the community in which they live. Unfortunately, those who listen to Radio 3 aren't very representative - in age, education, social grade &c &c. So if an English region is going to appoint about 12-15 members (West region) and 4% of the population listens to Radio 3, that would probably mean one member (or more likely none) in that region. And the catch is that although there might be a total of 150-200 members representing the English regions, each region might have no Radio 3 listeners. And the same would apply to the NI, Scottish and Welsh Councils.

This seemed to us (FoR3) one flaw the Council reports on Radio 3: the English methodology was to ask members overall how they thought Radio 3 was performing by answering fixed questions (Radio 3, 4 and 7/4Extra were dealt with at the same time. I quote, from the Council's report:

"As part of the Trust’s Service Review of Radios 3, 4 & 7, Audience Council England asked the members of its twelve regional audience councils (RACs) to contribute their views on each of the three services. Members were invited to listen to a selection of the output during the summer of 2010. They then completed feedback forms and participated in group discussions at the RAC meetings in September to inform Audience Council England’s formal submission to the Trust.

Approximately a third of members listened to each service, including regular listeners and those who had never used the service before."

I suspect Radio 4 would have come off best in identifying 'regular listeners'. I received no reply to repeated requests for information on how many were regular Radio 3 listeners, what output was selected for listening and who selected it [I deduced Discovering Music was one programme]. It's anyone's guess how many were Radio 3 listeners. I quote again, from the section on Radio 3:

"Radio 3 scored highly on quality and distinctiveness, even among those who were not regular Radio 3 or classical music listeners and who therefore did not find the content particularly appealing. [...] Those coming to Radio 3 for the first time thought that it demanded a large amount of prior knowledge on the part of listeners, and therefore catered only to a small ‘elite’." Well, they would think that, wouldn't they? One of our key criticisms in a 22-page report was that the review was biased towards finding out what 'potential' listeners thought (we quoted several examples, like this one) rather than what existing listeners thought; and since they thought it was 'a bit elitist' the Trust endorsed Radio 3 management's proposals (of which the results have been manifest)

Well, them's my comments - but I'd rather see a few listeners 'like us' on the Councils than none at all.

[MrGongGong]

"The Audience Council England is currently looking for new members for each its 12 regional panels."

& the bit on the Scottish Council says that they will post information on recruitment on the website, & there isn't any at the moment. I didn't check Wales & N. Ireland, but, given the quote above, I assume they're not either.

So what's the SNP plan for music broadcasting then if Scotland votes YES ?
Or do they want to keep the BBC as well as the £ ?

(new thread in the dungeon maybe ? )

[Flosshilde]

I refer you to the White Paper - Scotland's future

http://scotgov.publishingthefuture.info/publication/scotlands-future

Under our proposals, a Scottish Broadcasting Service, providing TV, radio and online services, will be established as a publicly funded public service broadcaster, working with the BBC in a joint venture

[aeolium]

And there's a summary here:

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/26/scottish-independence-bbc-broadcaster-snp-white-paper

[MrGongGong]

[QUOTE=Flosshilde;380540]I refer you to the White Paper - Scotland's future

http://scotgov.publishingthefuture.info/publication/scotlands-future

Thanks, that's a mighty tome indeed