Analysis of Public Consultation FINAL REPORT 19 October 2009 By Helen Mather and Penny Browell Public Knowledge Table of Contents 1. INTRODUCTION 4 PROFILE OF RESPONDENTS 6 2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 11 3 MAIN REPORT – RADIO 2 19 3.1 Question 1: How do you listen to Radio 2 and how often? 19 3.2 Question 2: What do you think is good about BBC Radio 2? 21 3.3 Question 3: Is there anything you don’t like or would like to change about Radio 2? 27 3.4 Question 4: Do you think Radio 2 stands out from other radio stations? If so, please tell us how you think it is different. 33 3.5 Question 5: Radio 2 is meant to appeal to all ages over 35. How well do you think it does this? 39 3.6 Question 6: Does Radio 2 serve some groups of people better than others? 44 3.7 Question 7: Radio 2 is meant to provide a wide range of music including both familiar music and specialist music which does not normally receive wide exposure. How well do you think Radio 2 does this? 50 3.8 Question 8: As well as music, Radio 2 offers speech based content including news, discussion programmes, current affairs, documentaries, religion, arts, readings and social action output such as health campaigns. What do you think of this type of content? 54 3.9 Question 9: What do you think about Radio 2’s website and podcasts? 60 3.10 Question 10: Radio 2 is meant to support live performance and encourage people to participate in music. How well do you think Radio 2 does these things? 64 3.11 Question 11: Radio 2 is meant to support new song writing, new comedy talent and new artists, especially those from the UK. How well do you think Radio 2 does these things? 68 3.12 Question 12: Is there anything else you want to tell us about Radio 2? 73 4 MAIN REPORT – BBC 6 Music 79 4.1 Question 1: How do you listen to 6 Music and how often? 79 2 19 October – BBC Trust Radio 2 and 6 Music © Dipsticks Research Ltd 4.2 Question 2: What do you think is particularly good about 6 Music? 81 4.3 Question 3: Is there anything you don’t like or would like to change about 6 Music? 85 4.4 Question 4: Do you think 6 Music stands out from other stations? If so, please tell us how you think it is different? 90 4.5 Question 5: Does 6 Music serve some groups of people better than others? 95 4.6 Question 6: 6 Music is meant to offer a wide selection of music including new music, live music, tracks from the BBC’s archive and less familiar tracks. It should focus on artists and material which do not receive much support from other radio stations and UK artists should be well represented. How well do you think it does these things? 99 4.7 Question 7: 6 Music is meant to provide context for the music it plays. How well do you think it does this? 105 4.8 Question 8: What do you think of 6 Music’s speech based content including its news bulletins, music news, features and documentaries? 109 4.9 Question 9: What do you think of 6 Music’s website and podcasts? 114 4.10 Question 10: Is there anything else you want to tell us about 6 Music? 119 5 MAIN REPORT – Freeform responses 126 5.1 General Freeform responses 126 5.2 Responses from Lobby Group 127 3 19 October – BBC Trust Radio 2 and 6 Music © Dipsticks Research Ltd 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 About the review and public consultation The BBC Trust is the independent governing body of the BBC representing the interests of licence fee payers. The Trust’s role is to get the best out of the BBC for licence fee payers and to secure effective promotion of its public purposes. The Trust is required to represent the interests of licence fee payers, assess their views carefully and appropriately, and have regard to the competitive impact of the BBC’s activities on the wider market. It must also ensure that the BBC observes high standards of openness and transparency. Each of the BBC services has a ‘service licence’ which details the remit for that service, outlining the overall format and particular characteristics the output of the service should embrace. The licence also indicates how the specific service should contribute to the overall delivery of the BBC’s public purposes. The BBC Trust is committed to reviewing each BBC service at least once during a five year cycle. This report will be considered as part of the review of the BBC services Radio 2 and 6 Music. As part of any review, the Trust considers a range of different types of evidence including asking licence fee payers to respond to a number of specific questions about the services through an open public consultation. The consultation was open from 7 May to 30 July 2009. There were two main methods for people to respond to the consultation. 4 19 October – BBC Trust Radio 2 and 6 Music © Dipsticks Research Ltd Firstly, respondents were able to reply to the 22 questions, via a special web form on the BBC Trust’s website. For this review, the Trust made these questions available on a bespoke website, www.bbcyoursay.co.uk, in order to encourage a range of licence fee payers to voice their opinions about these services and to comment on Radio 2 and 6 Music. Secondly, the BBC Trust printed and distributed hard copy leaflets. These presented the same information as the BBC Trust website, and featured a tear off section where respondents could answer questions and send their responses back to the BBC Trust by post. The BBC Trust also received a number of freeform letters (either by e—mail or in hard copy) which were sent as contributions to the review by members of the public. A summary of these is included at the end of the report. Information about the profile of respondents was collected via the online consultation, but not in the hard copy leaflets or the freeform letters/e-mails received. The BBC Trust has considered a range of evidence, including the views summarised in this report, and has published its conclusions on the review of BBC Radio 2 and 6 Music on the Trust website (www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust). 1.2 About this report This report has been prepared by Public Knowledge, an independent research company, on behalf of the BBC Trust, as an input to its review of BBC services Radio 2 and 6 Music. This report contains a summary of the views of the 4,698 responses to the BBC Trust’s online consultation and provides an analysis of the responses and summarises the key themes expressed by the public. 5 19 October – BBC Trust Radio 2 and 6 Music © Dipsticks Research Ltd This report covers replies from individuals only - a summary of responses from stakeholders and organisations can be found separately on the BBC Trust website. The replies to the 22 consultation questions have been summarised in the main body of this report and are split into two sections; one for each of the specific services. The number of responses received is presented here to give an idea of the strength of feeling on different questions. However, the reader should note that the responses represent the important views of those who chose to take part in our consultation and may not be representative of the population as a whole. As part of the consultation, respondents were asked to indicate how frequently, if at all, they listened to the BBC services and each section breaks out responses according to this information where relevant. It should also be noted that respondents were free to answer as many or as few questions as they chose. Therefore for each individual question there will be a number of respondents who have not answered. Tabulations are based only on those who have answered, so base sizes will vary. In Section 2, there is a summary conclusion for each question. In Section 3, the detailed tables are based on all responses given (rather than all respondents). PROFILE OF RESPONDENTS The BBC Trust is committed to ensuring that it listens to the views of a wide range of licence fee payers and therefore the consultation also gave respondents the opportunity to indicate their gender, age, location by nation of the UK, disability and ethnicity. Although not all respondents submitted this information, this report also highlights any noticeable 6 19 October – BBC Trust Radio 2 and 6 Music © Dipsticks Research Ltd differences in responses according to a particular demographic where relevant or significant. When comments are used to illustrate the findings, where possible the age and gender of the respondent has been noted, where this information was provided. The following tables show the available demographic information for the 4,698 respondents to the consultation, including those respondents who did not offer this information: Gender Number of % of overall respondents total Male 2,399 51 Female 1,284 27 Not Specified 1,015 22 Total 4,698 100% Age Number of % of overall respondents total 14 or under 6 0 15-24 213 5 25-34 694 15 35-44 956 20 45-54 904 19 55-64 668 14 65 and over 261 6 Not Specified 996 21 Total 4,698 100% Disability Number of % of overall respondents total Yes 175 4 No 3,117 66 Not specified 1,406 30 Total 4,698 100% 7 19 October – BBC Trust Radio 2 and 6 Music © Dipsticks Research Ltd Location Number of % of overall respondents total England 3,163 67 Scotland 275 6 Wales 151 3 Northern Ireland 46 1 Other 2 0 Not specified 1,061 23 Total 4,698 100% 8 19 October – BBC Trust Radio 2 and 6 Music © Dipsticks Research Ltd Ethnicity Number of % of overall Ethnic Group respondents total Sub-total White British 2973 63 White Irish 41 1 White Traveller 6 0 Other White 0 0 Total White 3,020 (64%) Indian 3 0 Pakistani 0 0 Bangladeshi 4 0 Asian Other 0 0 Total Asian 7 (0%) Black African 2 0 Black Caribbean 3 0 Black Other 0 0 Total Black