Some media news highlights for November.
1. LATEST RAJAR FIGURES
Recent RAJAR figures for Q3 of 2024 show that 32.6m people listened to the BBC’s unrivalled programming across key events this summer, from the Paris Olympics and Euro 2024 to the General Election and an ambitious season of BBC Proms.
The busiest week of the quarter (w/c 8 July) saw BBC Sounds users peak at 4.9 million as listeners closely followed developments of the changing government after the UK General Election. In addition it was a huge week for sport, with the build up to the men’s UEFA Euro 2024 final where Spain beat England 2-1, and the Wimbledon tennis finals.
On BBC Sounds, listeners for BBC Proms were up 12% on last year. The Proms also struck a chord with younger audiences – making it into the top 10 most listened to on-demand programmes of the quarter for under 35s. With its new schedule and an ambitious season of BBC Proms, Radio 3 delighted over 2 million people and scored a record number of hours spent listening to the station: the highest in Radio 3’s history.
There was a total of 213 million downloads for BBC podcasts around the world this quarter, up by 4 million from Q2.
2. BBC CHAIRMAN SPEECH
In his first speech as BBC Chairman at the Leeds Conservatoire, Samir Shah gave a warning
that “the fight is on” to protect the Corporation from being outgunned by streaming rivals such as Amazon Prime and Netflix. He said ‘ Action is now needed to future-proof PSBs in the digital age, otherwise our very British success story will be part of our halcyon past.’
He will be focusing on three areas in order to protect PSB’s going forwards
1. Ease of access and prominence on Smart TV’s – lobbying Government
2. Regulation – a regulatory framework that helps PSB’s rather than hinders our response to the changing media landscape.
3. Protect the Grassroots – talk to Government about what more could be done to make sure the tax system and the policy environment not only benefits the big players, but supports training and skills for the whole sector, in every part of the UK.
His speech in full can be accessed @ www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/speeches/2024/bbc-chair-leeds-conservatoire-speech
3. STREAMLINING LOCAL RADIO
In October 2022, the BBC announced plans for its Local Radio stations. It has 139 jobs across its 39 stations in England and share more afternoon and night-time programming regionally. After these cuts to BBC Local Radio which have resulted in shared programming across multiple stations, Commercial Radio has been following suit. Kate Thornton is replacing eight presenters on local commercial stations as streamlining changes the landscape of listening.
Some streamlining seems inevitable, but broadcasters and regulators do need to ensure that what makes our radio landscape regionally distinctive remains.
