CONFIDENTIAL - UNCONFIRMED ACWM (14) 7
MINUTES OF AUDIENCE COUNCIL WALES MEETING Held on Friday 17 October 2014, Caerwylan Hotel, Cricieth.
Present: Elan Closs Stephens (Chair) Trust Member for Wales Carol Adams Joni Ayn Alexander Rhian Connick Pam Hunt Ceri Stradling Alun Williams
Apologies: Ryan Davies Andrew Jones Aled Jones-Griffith Ian Stevens Marjorie Williams In attendance from the Trust Unit: Karl Davies Chief Adviser Wales Governance Coordinator and Secretary to Siôn Brynach Audience Council Wales Eleri Hobson Departmental Assistant Rhiannon James Work experience placement From the BBC Wales Executive (agenda items 70-74): Head of north Wales centre Bethan Williams (for agenda item 65) Rhys Evans Head of Strategy and Digital Betsan Powys Editor Radio Cymru Huw Meredydd Roberts Assistant Editor Digital and Planning
63 ANNOUNCEMENTS AND DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
63.1 There were no declarations of interest. The Council expressed its sympathy for Aled Jones-Griffith, whose father was seriously ill.
64 MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING AND MATTERS ARISING
1
CONFIDENTIAL - UNCONFIRMED ACWM (14) 7
64.1 The minutes (ACWM (14) 6) of the meeting held on 5 September 2014 were accepted as a true and accurate record of the meeting. There were no matters arising.
65 INFORMAL PRESENTATION BY BETHAN WILLIAMS, HEAD OF NORTH WALES CENTRE, BANGOR ON THE BBC’S ACTIVITY IN NORTH WALES
65.1 The Council was informed that the north Wales centre provided 4 hours each morning to Radio Cymru’s output. Other staff worked on the on-line Cymru Fyw service as well as one English language output.
65.2 She said that the key challenge was to ensure that north Wales was adequately reflected in BBC Cymru Wales’ radio, TV and on-line output. One of the TV programmes in production in Bangor was on the last months of electricity production at Wylfa Nuclear Power Station.
65.3 Correspondents based in Bangor and Wrexham contributed to the programmes including Eleri Siôn and Jason Mohammed on Radio Wales. Adam Walton’s Science Café Radio Wales programme was presented from Wrexham.
65.4 Head of North Wales Centre made reference to the Merched Medrus / Expert Women project which encouraged women to contribute to radio and TV programmes and gave them experience of conducting media interviews. 70 women had applied for the 18 places available at the most recent event in Bangor.
66 DISCUSSION ON COUNCIL’S SUBMISSION TO THE CONSULTATION PHASE OF THE TRUST’S MUSIC RADIO SERVICES REVIEW
66.1 The Council expressed its satisfaction with its final draft submission to this consultation and praised BBC Trust staff for the quality of the submission. It also thanked Ian Stevens for his particular contribution to the process and noted the extensive audience outreach the Council had undertaken in relation to this Service Review.
66.2 The Council added to its advice points regarding the introduction of new talent from the nations and regions of the UK; its perception that there could be more new music from the nations on Radio 1 and Radio 2; and 66.3 the point, raised strongly at the Penywaun youth club, regarding audience expectations and difficulty of attracting younger audiences. 66.4 The Council also asked for two points regarding technology to be added. The first had arisen strongly at the RWAS Show, where people said that their listening choices were dictated by the stations they were able to access. The second was that it was dangerous to assume all young people could access or afford the latest technology both in terms of infrastructure
2
CONFIDENTIAL - UNCONFIRMED ACWM (14) 7
(such as broadband) and devices (such as smartphones or tablets).
66.5 With these additions, the Council agreed that Trust staff in Wales should submit its advice to the BBC Trust.
67 DISCUSSION ON EMERGING THEMES RELATING TO TRUST’S SPEECH RADIO SERVICES REVIEW OF
67.1 The discussion took place in two groups.
67.2 Both groups raised the issue of the lack of geographic, ethnic, socio- economic, age and gender diversity in Radio 4’s output – and that it felt very much a south-east of England station, with this being reflected in the main geographic distribution of listeners. This was particularly, but not exclusively, the case in relation to the station’s news output, which remained Westminster oriented. The key question was how Radio 4 was ensuring its own breadth of voice from across the UK and reflecting the policy and legislative differences in the individual nations of the UK.
67.3 It was also felt that it would be interesting to explore the extent to which listeners felt that BBC’s network speech radio stations were fulfilling their responsibility in nurturing original UK talent, and how this also linked to hearing expert voices as presenters on those stations.
67.4 Turning to Radio 5 Live, both groups said that a key question was how the station could attract more women to listen. Some Council members felt that while 75% of the station’s output was news and current affairs, it was still primarily perceived as a ‘sports’ station and that this might be a factor in its failure to attract more women listeners. The point was also made that the paucity of coverage of women’s sport might be a factor to explore in this context during the review.
67.5 The Council again considered that Radio 5 Live would benefit from being more geographically diverse in its output. 67.6 The Council felt that both Radio 4 Extra and Radio 5 Live Sports Extra could benefit from being better promoted.
68 CHIEF ADVISER’S REPORT
68.2 The Council was informed that it would be joined at its next pre-meeting working dinner by former ACW member and Director of Wisekids, Sangeet Bhullar who would share with Council the outcomes of a recent research project undertaken by the charity on the media consumption patterns of teenagers.
69 DISCUSSION ON THE COUNCIL’S PROGRAMME OF AUDIENCE OUTREACH EVENTS OCTOBER 2014-SEPTEMBER
3
CONFIDENTIAL - UNCONFIRMED ACWM (14) 7
2015
69.1 The Council discussed the proposals contained in the paper tabled at the meeting and commended the proposals to visit Ammanford, Brecon and Denbigh during the first quarter of 2015.
69.2 The Council agreed to further discuss how to access Radio 5 Live and Radio 5 Live Sports Extra audiences, and suggestions were made regarding sports clubs.
69.3 Powys, as a geographical location was also suggested, with Council making the point that the north-west of the county had not been visited by the ACW for some time.
69.4 The Council suggested that the possibility of a late afternoon audience at the Eisteddfod should be explored.
70 DISCUSSION ON PREVIOUS EVENING’S AUDIENCE OUTREACH EVENT AT CRICIETH MEMORIAL HALL
70.1 The Council praised the organisation and execution of the event, and thanked BBC Trust staff in Wales for their hard work in realising the event.
70.2 The Council expressed the view that it had generated a significant number of comments both about Network speech radio and about BBC Cymru’s Welsh language radio and on-line services. Editor Radio Cymru and Assistant Editor Digital and Content thanked the Council for inviting them to attend, and informed members how useful it had been for them to hear these comments at first hand.
71 THE NATIONAL TRUSTEE’S REPORT
71.1 The National Trustee made reference to the 40th anniversary celebration for Pobol y Cwm, the previous evening which explained the absence of Director Wales and other members of the BBC Wales Board from the meeting, and paid tribute to the continuing drama.
71.5 Initial developments towards personalising the experience of BBC iPlayer users had begun, but there were future developments in the offing.
71.6 The National Trustee informed Council members that she had attended the September meeting of BBC Audience Council Scotland, and that it was clear that many questions remained following the outcome of the recent referendum on Scottish independence.
72 DIRECTOR WALES REPORT
4
CONFIDENTIAL - UNCONFIRMED ACWM (14) 7
72.1 The Head of Strategy and Digital presented the BBC Wales Executive report on behalf of Director Wales.
72.2 Echoing the earlier comments of the National Trustee he said that Pobol y Cwm’s recent 40th anniversary represented a remarkable achievement in both practical and creative terms.
72.3 The key output of BBC Wales during September and October had been the family season, with the one highlight being Jamie Baulch’s efforts to discover his birth mother.
72.5 The latest series of Doctor Who continued to perform well, and BBC Wales had recently developed a Doctor Who related game, to be launched during the next few weeks, which would contribute to the BBC’s digital development programme, and which necessitated those playing the game to use computer code to make progress, thus supporting the national curriculum. It remained a priority for the BBC to take its content to its younger audiences, where they were, in digital terms.
72.6 BBC National Orchestra of Wales had contributed significantly to the BBC’s 10 Pieces Project that would lead to a number of further projects during the coming year.
72.7 The local DAB Multiplex in north-west Wales is planned to be launched in December which would further expand the provision of Radio Cymru and Radio Wales in that part of Wales.
72.8 Turning to the television performance report, Head of Strategy and Digital said that it clearly reflected the seasonal variations in TV viewing. The summer period on BBC One and Two Wales, he said, was noteworthy for the relatively low number of opt-out broadcast hours beyond news programming. A consistent level of provision, he added, was an important question for the future development of BBC Wales’ English language television programming in Wales.
73 PRESENTATION ON THE BBC CYMRU FYW SERVICE
73.1 Assistant Editor Digital and planning introduced Council members to the key features of the Cymru Fyw app and on-line service. The Council strongly welcomed the launch and provision of the app and the service and congratulated the Cymru Fyw team on the successful delivery of the project.
73.2 The Council was informed that the first few months since the launch of the Cymru Fyw service had demonstrated the importance of quality content – distinctive and unique. The introduction of the service had led to an increase in weekly users compared to visits to last year’s level of visits to the Welsh language news pages.
5
CONFIDENTIAL - UNCONFIRMED ACWM (14) 7
73.3 The aims and objectives of the service were to increase online reach, to provide a unique regularly updated service, for the service to exist within a wider context and work with others services and websites, and to raise awareness of Welsh online content beyond the BBC. Another key element was that it made things much easier, through the app, for audience members to contribute to the site.
73.4 When BBC News Online’s new site is updated shortly, a Cymru button will feature on the top menu and Welsh language news stories will appear on the BBC News app, for the first time. It was essential that it was as easy as possible for audiences to access the BBC’s Welsh language content from central BBC sites. The launch of the Cymru Fyw service had also raised the profile of Welsh language online content across the BBC, which had been useful in relation to the development of new services.
73.5 The Radio Cymru website had also seen an increase in usage, and had become an important portal for accessing Radio Cymru with thousands of clicks to listen to programmes and clips online and to download podcasts. The Radio Cymru website has also seen substantial developments in relation to the use of blogs and an increase in the number of podcasts available.
73.6 All the BBC’s formal online learning content for 4-19 year olds was now exclusively under the Bitesize brand and it remained the case that there was some work to do in relation to making the needs of Wales central to the BBC’s offering.
73.7 Welsh language content was also now available on the CBeebies website which was strongly welcomed by the Council and it asked whether these were positively promoted on the CBeebies site since it had been informed by audiences that they had experienced difficulties in accessing these resources. Council also expressed concern that Welsh language games within the CBeebies website did not work on mobile devices. The Council said that this was a matter of huge concern since young children were the most likely Welsh citizens to be monolingual Welsh speakers and having Welsh language games available via the CBeebies website (on all devices) would also support parents of young children who were trying to help them learn Welsh. The Council asked for this matter to be a priority issue to be drawn to the attention of the Trust.
73.8 The Council said that its previous evening’s audience event had demonstrated that there was strong anticipation amongst the public regarding the advent of S4C to the iPlayer in the near future.
74 PRESENTATION ON BBC RADIO CYMRU
74.1 Editor Radio Cymru began her presentation by emphasising that Cymru Fyw was now viewed as a sister service to Radio Cymru and as such fulfilled a
6
CONFIDENTIAL - UNCONFIRMED ACWM (14) 7
very important role.
74.2 She informed members that the proposed schedule changes mentioned when she had last spoken to Council had been introduced in March 2014. In the past the perception of audiences had been that the station’s schedule was too similar throughout the day, but this had now changed with variety, clear zoning, and big personalities introduced into the presenter line-up.
74.3 She said that Dylan Jones had now become a part of the morning provision, continuing on from presenting Post Cyntaf, and while the distinction between news and non-news output had been blurred one positive outcome was the opportunity to hear voices that, in the past, might not have been heard.
74.4 Rhaglen Shân Cothi included classical music and had a warm tone to it with new innovations, such as a Christmas cake competition, to be introduced shortly.
74.5 Between 12noon and 2pm, the station’s tone was much closer to that of Radio 4, with the output being typified by commentary and no music.
74.6 The afternoon’s schedule was given over to Tommo (Mon-Thur) or Tudur Owen (Fri), with liveliness being the key goal. The latter’s use of satire, through the episodes of Bronmeirion, was particularly popular and had become a regular feature of the programme.
74.7 C2 continued to be an important part of the station’s schedule and was now being linked to tours around Wales’ schools
74.8 Turning to other new innovations the station had introduced a monthly resident poet, a brass bands day, and broadcasting content from the Womex festival in Cardiff. The results of the Scottish referendum on Radio Cymru had been a tri-cast, with the same content broadcast on S4C, on Radio Cymru and the on-line Cymru Fyw service. During August, the centenary of the start of the First World War had been marked by content from the young people of today interspersed with letters from young soldiers of 100 years ago. A Welsh version of Dylan Thomas’ classic Under Milk Wood radio play – Dan y Wenallt by T James Jones - performed by the cast of Pobol y Cwm, would be broadcast shortly by the station.
74.9 Editor Radio Cymru said that while the production teams anticipated the October RAJAR figures with some trepidation - the usual result of schedule changes being a significant drop in audience levels initially before later growth – the station had experienced growth since 2012. It remained a challenge to compete with Radio 2, Wales’ most popular station.
74.10 The Council asked what the audience response had been to the playing of English language music as part of Tommo’s programme and was told that the matter had not become a huge issue for audiences since the amount of
7
CONFIDENTIAL - UNCONFIRMED ACWM (14) 7
Welsh language music broadcast by the station overall had increased. The Council expressed its satisfaction that the schedule was now more inclusive and varied, but recognised the challenge involved in keeping audiences during zones that did not appeal to them.
75 PRIORITY ISSUES FOR THE BBC TRUST
75.1 The Council expressed its concern that CBeebies was not promoting the Welsh language content on its website. Council also expressed concern that Welsh language games within the CBeebies website did not work on mobile devices since young children were the most likely Welsh citizens to be monolingual Welsh speakers and having Welsh language games available via the CBeebies website would support parents of young children who were trying to help them learn Welsh.
75.2 The Council asked for its concerns regarding the recent report on progress in implementing the outcomes of the Trust’s Impartiality Review on reflecting the news in the UK’s devolved nations to be reiterated, and for an update on when the next such report from BBC Network News could be expected. It said that this was a matter of some urgency with the UK General Election on the horizon.
75.3 The Council also asked on progress regarding one of its priorities at the Trust’s Audience Councils day regarding the greater use of Nations programming on Network.
76 CONFIRMATION OF DATE OF NEXT ACW MEETING
76.1 The next meeting of the Council will take place at BBC Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff, Friday 21 November followed by the Council’s seminar on Welsh demographics and English language Public Service Broadcasting in Wales.
8