Part (a)Radio 1 target audience is on the decline, discuss the reasons why audience numbers are dropping and the steps taken by the organisation to maintain (and or grow) its audience. Discuss the role of technology in maintaining its audience.
Part (b) From your viewing of Jon Richardson on the phones, measuring skips and did the Strictly crowd fist pump? Discuss the impact of Radio 1’s funding (from taxpayers money) on its production content. (take into account the stations remit…)
The Radio 1 Breakfast show - broadcasted on FM, DAB, Freeview, Freesat, Virgin, sky and online via BBC Radio Player (allowing viewers to view it up to 30 days after it has been released) - with Greg James is broadcasted weekdays from 6:30am till 10:00am. The breakfast show has been running since 1967 but has recently been taken over by Greg James (becoming the 16th presenter in 2018). Their music is largely playlisted, what is going to be played on daytime Radio 1 is decided by a committee - they choose around 40 records each week to be repeated during the daytime play(A-list records get 25 plays a week, B-lists get 15, and C-lists get 8 to 10). The current fee is £150.50 for a colour license and £50.50 for a black and white license; however, the license is free if you are 75 or over, and half-price if you are registered blind. BBC Radio 1's remit is to entertain and engage a broad range of young listeners with a distinctive mix of contemporary music and speech. The target audience is 15-29-year-olds and it should also provide some programming for younger teenagers. BBC Radio 1 should offer a range of new music, supporting emerging artists - especially those from the UK - and to provide a platform for live music. News and documentaries and advice campaigns should cover areas of relevance to young adults. Radio 1 is funded by the Television license fee. In 2016/17 Radio 1 had a budget of £34.7 million. The high level of funding available to Radio 1 influences the quality of programs. Radio 1 is able to host special events (such as concerts and competitions for example). Radio 1 uses this revenue to ensure that program content (the guests and the quiz quality for example) is high, quality production; and can fund Social Media sites (such as Twitter, Youtube and Facebook for example). People aged between 15 and 24 listened to just over 14 hours of radio per week last year - seven hours less than the average adult and less than 15% less than they did a decade earlier - according to the broadcasting regulator Ofcom. Radio 1 is suffering because its core audience is turning away from live radio (this is largely to do with the new arrival of streaming services). The Breakfast Show has been losing audience numbers year-on-year since Nick Grimshaw took over by Grimshaw was brought in especially to develop a larger audience in its target range of 15-29 and shed over 30s.
The general purpose of the show is to provide music for people and to provide them with the news, weather and other goings on in the world. the age demographic is around 15 to 29. this has a large impact on the type of music that would be played on the show. Mainly stuff that teenagers would listen to. The general pattern is an intro, then about three songs, then more talking, then another three songs then a member of the public is open the show, then three more songs. Finally, the weather is talked about, along with the news and the general information about what is happening in the world. Then another three songs and a quiz. The news tends to be every thirty minutes. This rota is repetitive and is on a constant cycle throughout the whole time that the show is on - 30 minutes of music, 10 minutes of news, and then 10 minutes of quiz and talking to people. The music jas to fit the wants of a large number of people, for example, the main music type is pop music, but if they only played that kind of music then they would miss out on other listeners that like different kinds of music such as rock music.
The general purpose of the show is to provide music for people and to provide them with the news, weather and other goings on in the world. the age demographic is around 15 to 29. this has a large impact on the type of music that would be played on the show. Mainly stuff that teenagers would listen to. The general pattern is an intro, then about three songs, then more talking, then another three songs then a member of the public is open the show, then three more songs. Finally, the weather is talked about, along with the news and the general information about what is happening in the world. Then another three songs and a quiz. The news tends to be every thirty minutes. This rota is repetitive and is on a constant cycle throughout the whole time that the show is on - 30 minutes of music, 10 minutes of news, and then 10 minutes of quiz and talking to people. The music jas to fit the wants of a large number of people, for example, the main music type is pop music, but if they only played that kind of music then they would miss out on other listeners that like different kinds of music such as rock music.
The show starts at 6:30am and after a quick hello from the presenters, 2 songs are played - I Found You by Calvin Harris and Blanco, and Let it Go by James Bay - and then they give a quick debrief of what is going to be happening throughout the whole broadcast. The first few people that have been played are Scottish, American and English going to prove that there is no specificity on who is getting played (whether they are British or not). Although, the only people who are being played right now are males, creating an enigma on whether or not females will be played eventually and it is just that they are the first songs randomly chosen. The age range of who is being played first is 28-34. Once the songs have finished, the presenters then talk a bit more; telling the audience stories that have been told to them through phone calls from viewers all over the UK. After more 2 songs have been played, the hosts introduce the songs that have just been played - the artist and the song title - and then give the audience a sneak peek of the topics that are going to be talked about and the songs that are to be played (by playing snippets of the songs for them). For the rest of the radio broadcast, it is a constant cycle between songs then talking, songs then advertisement and showing what is coming up and then repeated. However, the cycle is broken every half hour where the news is being presented (sports, weather and just generally what is happening around the world). It becomes apparent by the end of the second news broadcast that it is just a recycle of the news in the previous half hour (7:00, 7:30, 8:00, 8:30, 9:00. In this broadcast, they go on about Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn - that many people are likely to vote against Brexit and this would cause an uncertainty to making the Brexit plan a reality. They would next talk about New Zealand - how at least 145 whales are becoming stranded on the beach and half of those who have died have had to be put down. They also mentioned that needles have been found in strawberries in Australia and New Zealand. Other things that they talk about consist of the robot landing on Mars, Cricketers "whitewash" in Sri Lanka, football possibly going to the final, and the weather. As well as telling news, playing songs and telling pub stories, the Radio 1 hosts competitions such as manning the phones Jan Scam (a festival) and Call-ins (Manning the Pub, Phone-ins, and Pub stories). Since the Radio is based in the UK, they mainly play artists who are from the UK (Calvin Harris, James Bay, Florence and the Machine, Weiss, Liam Payne, Bring Me The Horizon, Rita Ora, Little Mix, and George Ezra for example) to help promote them and maintain their contemporary audience.
Last year, BBC News reported the number of hours 15-24-year-olds spent listening to the radio has fallen from 29 million hours in 2010 to 16 million in 2016. This age group used to make up 45% of Radio 1's listenership; however, it more recently being 36%. This is largely thanks to the arrival of streaming services, and that’s why Radio 1’s head of music, Chris Price, wants to start some kind of streaming service. Right now, Radio 1 doesn’t have that streaming service, so it’s targeting it's 15- to 29-year-old demographic elsewhere online, because they’re aware that 42% of 15- to 24-year-olds on social media follow their chosen radio station’s social pages, compared to 31% of those aged 25 or older. On YouTube, Radio 1 has 3.5m subscribers compared to Radio 2’s paltry 42,069. Radio 1 has 2.55m Facebook likes compared to Radio 2’s 633,053. Radio 2 may have higher listening figures for its live shows, but the reach of Radio 1 – particularly with viral content – is much higher on social media than it is for Radio 2, and that’s because its audience is younger. As Radio 1 controller Ben Cooper explained this morning: “Radio 1’s Listen, Watch, Share strategy means that RAJAR is only part of the story. Alongside the 10.5m listeners, our YouTube videos have received over 1.4 billion views and we have 8.7m followers across social media.” The reason Radio 1 has so many social media followers is that it’s producing content that works on YouTube and on social media as well as on the radio. These things are funny, they’re usually video-based, and they just happen to act as breadcrumbs that entice people on social media to tune in. When it gets famous guests, Radio 1 plays games like Innuendo Bingo or Playground Insults that are rivalling Carpool Karaoke, the hugely popular spot from James Corden’s massive US TV show, in terms of actual funniness and in what execs like to call ‘shareability’. Other reasons for the shrinkage of listeners is due to the differentiation in technology now-days - there being YouTube, Phones, IPads and iPlayer. To attempt to maintain their audience, BBC Radio 1 uses BBC iPlayer to involve artists in order to help them gain audience views. They do this by letting people rewatch the videos that they have of artists singing and doing small interviews after they have performed. BBC Radio 1 also uses social media platforms such as Youtube to allow viewers to watch these videos - such as Innuendo Bingo and Playground Instlu Match - which they have celebrities come in and take part in. More ways that the radio is trying to improve the audience who are listening is through using trending jokes and competitions to get people interacting.
