BBC Trust Review of Music Radio Stations Final Report of Qualitative Research March 2014 Research carried out by: 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Background ............................................................................................................ 3 Objectives .............................................................................................................. 4 Methodology and Sample ....................................................................................... 5 Executive Summary ............................................................................................... 7 Music radio landscape ............................................................................................ 9 Framework for Evaluating BBC music radio stations ........................................... 15 BBC Music Radio Portfolio .................................................................................... 18 Radio 1 ................................................................................................................. 22 Radio 1Xtra .......................................................................................................... 32 Radio 2 ................................................................................................................. 42 6 Music ................................................................................................................. 52 Radio 3 ................................................................................................................. 62 Asian Network ...................................................................................................... 75 Contact Details ..................................................................................................... 86 Appendices…………………………………………………………………………………..…….87 2 BACKGROUND The BBC Trust’s responsibility is to ensure that licence fee payers get the best out of the BBC. To ensure this happens, each BBC service has a service licence which details what is expected of it as well as how it should deliver against the BBC’s Public Purposes. The BBC Trust must review each service licence in depth once every five years, assessing in detail the performance of the services as well as considering future improvements that reflect audience needs. At present, one of the BBC Trust’s primary areas of work is to undertake a detailed review of its music radio services: Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3, Radio 1Xtra, 6 Music and Asian Network. The aim of this review is to understand the extent to which BBC music radio stations deliver against their public service objectives. In order to carry out this review, the Trust commissions research, undertakes a public consultation and canvasses opinion via the Trust’s Audience Councils. All three elements will feed into a published report. This document outlines the findings from the audience research, a qualitative research study that was carried out by Sparkler in quarter four of 2014. 3 OBJECTIVES Overall Objective To assist the BBC Trust in its review of the BBC’s music radio services. Research Objectives 1. To understand why music radio is important to audiences at the moment and what is changing. i. Who are the audiences and what value do they get from radio? ii. How are audience needs and expectations changing? iii. What are the audiences’ future needs likely to be? 2. To understand to what extent BBC music radio services are delivering against their service licences. i. Do the BBC music radio services appeal to a broad range of audiences? ii. Do the BBC music radio services sufficiently meet the needs of its audiences? iii. Do the BBC music radio services deliver against the Public Purposes and remits? iv. Are the services high quality and distinctive? v. Do the stations support a wide range of music genres (including live, UK and new music)? vi. How does speech contribute to perceptions? vii. Are there any misperceptions or barriers to listening? viii. Do the services sufficiently reflect the audiences they are designed for? ix. Are there any perceived service overlaps? x. How well placed are the services for the future? xi. How do people evaluate BBC music radio as a whole? 4 METHODOLOGY & SAMPLE To meet the objectives outlined, we developed a multi-stage methodology that allowed us to speak to as many people as possible, ensuring we had a valid, robust and fair sample across audience groups. In total, this approach allowed us to speak to 384 consumers qualitatively, via online and offline methodologies. 1. Extended project scoping session We held a 2-3 hour scoping session with key stakeholders from the BBC Trust. Coming out of the session, we had agreed on the best approach to evaluate each radio service as well the most important criteria for each service. In addition, we were able to reach agreement on terminology, as well as key content that would be used as part of the pre-task and for stimulus during the Audience Workshops. 2. Voices from the Crowd With the focus of the project agreed, this was our first stage of audience research. The objective of this stage was to get an initial understanding of the perceptions of each BBC service and the extent to which they deliver against key performance criteria. We conducted an online methodology that allowed us to speak to a sample of 300 people in total. The sample was split evenly between the six services. 3. Service Familiarisation Pre-Task In advance of the Audience Workshops, respondents were asked to complete a pre-task over the course of a week. The objective for this was two-fold: firstly, to capture overall perceptions of the focus service for each individual respondent; and then to familiarise respondents with the breadth of the schedule for their focus service (outside of their normal listening patterns) and capture their reactions to the service in light of this. 4. Audience Workshops Our final and core stage of the research was 14 audience workshops, comprising six respondents each, spread across seven UK locations. These sessions were designed to understand in depth the extent to which each service delivers to the BBC’s Public Purposes and provision of distinctive content, both now and in the context of evolving/future audience behaviours. We ran two hour sessions, which gave us sufficient time to conduct a thorough evaluation of each service. 5 Audience Workshops Sample: 6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Ten key overarching themes emerged from the research: 1. Audiences perceive significant changes in the music radio landscape due to advancements in technology and the trend towards digital forms of media. This has had an impact on their listening behaviours, but audiences do not feel that it has diminished the role of music radio stations in their lives. Rather, these have retained their relevance, but people are engaging with stations via a greater variety of channels and technology. 2. Looking to the future, although audiences find it hard to predict exactly what will happen to their radio listening, they expect that technology will continue to develop, that they will consume radio in more non-linear ways, and that BBC music radio stations will invest in and grow their non-radio content to ensure that station brands ‘live’ beyond what they do on-air. 3. When looking at the BBC portfolio of music radio stations, the response was very positive. Listeners feel that they are a family of high quality stations and have different roles in the lives of audiences. 4. On the whole, BBC Music Radio stations are felt to be successfully contributing to the Public Purposes, particularly towards stimulating ‘Creativity and cultural excellence’ which is seen to be of the utmost importance for BBC music radio stations to be fulfilling. 5. Among the Radio 1 audience, two distinct listener types emerged: daytime listeners who value Radio 1 for its entertainment offer (music, humour, keeping up to date) and evening listeners for whom Radio 1 plays a more prominent role in their music world. 6. 1Xtra is hitting the mark with its engaged listeners. It’s seen to have a distinctive identity in the music landscape as a home for urban music content that is not as readily available elsewhere on radio. 7. Radio 2 listeners are very proud and enthusiastic when talking about the station. It’s valued for its established presenters, a mature tone, high production values, intellectual debate, easy listening and for its music offer. 7 8. 6 Music listeners value the station for its unique stance in the music radio landscape. Listeners take pride in belonging to the ‘6 Music club’ thanks to its alternative music focus, its ‘music connoisseur’ presenters and its role in audiences’ music discovery. 9. Radio 3 is performing very well with its engaged audience for having best-in-class expert presenters, for offering a wide range of music beyond just classical and for being a market leader for providing live classical music content. 10. Asian Network is highly valued by listeners for its strong music and speech output. It’s felt to represent the British Asian community as a whole, covering various faiths, nations and regions, particularly with its high quality news and current affairs output. 8 MUSIC RADIO LANDSCAPE A key part of this research was to identify the role of music radio services as a whole in audiences’ lives. This section looks at the current music radio landscape and the value that respondents attribute to these services. The music listening landscape has evolved significantly In discussing their listening behaviours,