BBC Trust Public Consultation on the BBC's Speech Radio Services
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BBC Trust Public Consultation on the BBC’s Speech Radio Services A report by ICM on behalf of the BBC Trust Creston House, 10 Great Pulteney Street, London W1F 9NB [email protected] | www.icmunlimited.com | +44 020 7845 8300 (UK) | +1 212 886 2234 (US) ICM Research Ltd. Registered in England No. 2571387. Registered Address: Creston House, 10 Great Pulteney Street, London W1F 9NB A part of Creston Unlimited Table of contents 1. Background and Methodology ....................................................................................... 3 1.1 About the Review and Public Consultation .................................................................. 3 1.2 The Speech Radio Consultation .................................................................................. 3 1.3 Service Licences for Speech Radio Stations ............................................................... 3 1.4 BBC Speech Radio Station Remits .............................................................................. 4 2. Methodology .................................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 5 2.2 Collecting responses ................................................................................................... 5 2.3 Handling responses ..................................................................................................... 6 2.4 Grouping and analysing responses .............................................................................. 7 2.5 Interpreting results ....................................................................................................... 7 3. Findings for each station ................................................................................................ 8 3.1 Radio 4 ........................................................................................................................ 8 3.2 Radio 4 Extra ............................................................................................................. 20 3.3 Radio 5 live ................................................................................................................ 25 3.4 Radio 5 live sports extra ............................................................................................ 34 4. Appendix ....................................................................................................................... 39 2 1 Background and Methodology 1.1 About the Review and Public Consultation The BBC Trust is the governing body of the BBC. The BBC Trust’s responsibility is to get the best out of the BBC for licence fee payers; whether that means protecting its independence, or ensuring that the BBC continues to provide excellent value for money while staying true to its principles. The Trust must also ensure that the BBC has high standards of openness and transparency. To achieve this, the Trustees must keep in close contact with licence fee payers, being aware of and understanding their expectations of the BBC. They do this via research, consultation with the public and through the work of the BBC Audience Councils. A key element of the BBC Trust’s work is to consult publicly. This is done as part of their ongoing cycle of ‘service reviews’ of the BBC’s channels and services. The BBC Trust commissioned ICM Unlimited to log, code and analyse consultation responses. 1.2 The Speech Radio Consultation The BBC Trust has conducted consultations on each of the speech radio stations previously. However, the 2014/15 Speech Consultation is the first occasion on which the full portfolio of speech stations has been reviewed at the same time. The stations included in this consultation were: ● BBC Radio 4 ● BBC Radio 4 Extra ● BBC Radio 5 live ● BBC Radio 5 live sports extra 1.3 Services Licences for Speech Radio Stations Each BBC radio station has a ‘service licence’, which details its remit, outlining the overall format and particular characteristics the output of the service should embrace. The review will assess the performance of each station against its remit. 3 1.4 BBC Speech Radio Station Remits The service remit for each of the stations included in the consultation is outlined below: BBC Radio 4 The remit of Radio 4 is to be a mixed speech service, offering in- depth news and current affairs and a wide range of other speech output including drama, readings, comedy, factual and magazine programmes. BBC Radio 4 Extra The remit of Radio 4 Extra is to provide speech-based entertainment. Its schedule should include comedy, drama, stories, features, readings and programmes that appeal to children. BBC Radio 5 live The remit of BBC Radio 5 live is to provide live news and sports coverage. BBC Radio 5 live sports extra The remit of BBC Radio 5 live sports extra is to bring a greater choice of live action to sports fans by offering a part-time extension of BBC Radio 5 live. 4 2 Methodology 2.1 Introduction The Speech Radio consultation ran for 12 weeks, between 2nd December 2014 and 23rd February 2015. The primary means of participating in the consultation was online or by post, using the BBC Trust’s official consultation document. The consultation questionnaire was co-designed by the BBC Trust and ICM. Respondents were instructed to complete as many, or as few, of the questions as they wished. For each radio station, the BBC Trust asked people for their views on the following: BBC Radio 4 Overall views of the station; News, current affairs, documentaries and factual programming; Drama and comedy; The station’s use of digital technologies. BBC Radio 4 Extra Overall views of the station. BBC Radio 5 live Overall views of the station; The news; Commentary, news and other programmes on sports; The station’s use of digital technologies. BBC Radio 5 live sports extra Overall views of the station. The consultation questionnaire also contained a series of demographic questions, designed to help the BBC Trust understand the views of specific sections of the population who had chosen to respond to the consultation. 2.2 Collecting responses Public consultations are a democratic exercise in the sense that any member of the public is eligible to take part should they wish to. In order to engage with a broad range of licence-fee payers, the consultation was made available through a range of platforms (details provided below). The consultation was also promoted using a variety of channels, with promotional trails, editorial mentions and interviews on the radio stations themselves, a link on the BBC Trust website, and Twitter was also used. 5 In total, 5,256 members of the public responded to the consultation in the following ways: Online responses (4,477) ● The large majority of responses were submitted online via the BBC Trust’s online consultation platform. Email responses (51) ● Completed consultation questionnaires: Some respondents downloaded a copy of the consultation questionnaire and emailed it to the BBC Trust via the dedicated consultation inbox. ● Freeform: Some respondents chose to complete a freeform response by email rather than submitting their response using a questionnaire format. Postal responses (698) ● Completed consultation questionnaires: Respondents were also able to download a copy of the consultation questionnaire and post it to the BBC Trust. Hard copies of the questionnaire were available by request via a publically advertised phone number. ● Freeform: Respondents could also choose to write a freeform response by letter, rather than submitting their response using a questionnaire format. Twitter (28) ● Publicity: The consultation was publicised through the BBC Trust account as well as through the individual radio stations’ accounts. A link to the full online consultation was provided so that people could access the whole questionnaire. ● Responses: For the second time in a BBC Trust public consultation, responses were accepted through Twitter using the hashtag #trustreview. Overall, 44 tweets were received in relation to the review (note that some respondents sent more than one tweet). Telephone (2) ● To ensure that the consultation was accessible to everybody, ICM offered the option of submitting a response by telephone on request. ● ICM conducted 2 consultation interviews by phone. 2.3 Handling responses Each consultation response received by ICM has been entered electronically and is stored on a secure centralised system. Every response has received a unique ID code and to protect the privacy of consultation respondents, all personal data has been separated from responses. 6 ICM’s response handling procedures have been designed for compliance with ISO 27001 and ISO 20252, the international standards for data security and market research. 2.4 Grouping and analysing responses ICM’s expert team grouped all responses to each question into themes, enabling accurate analysis of each question. A key element of the analysis process for any consultation is the development of a thematic analysis framework by which open questions can be analysed. An initial framework based on the first 1,000 responses evolves and is refined throughout the rest of the consultation. This framework is a flexible document that develops as analysis progresses. 2.5 Interpreting results This report presents the views of the 5,256 people who responded to this public consultation using any of the channels outlined in the ‘collecting