Forum for former BBC staff

Forum for former BBC staff
http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> News and Comment >> BBC Radio "given up". http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1529184360 Message started by Administrator on Jun 16^th, 2018, 9:27pm

Title: BBC Radio "given up".
Post by Administrator on Jun 16^th, 2018, 9:27pm

According to this report in "The Sunday Telegraph", written by Chrisopher Williams (Deputy Business Editor).....

"The BBC is to give up competing with commercial radio stations for audiences to focus on the threat to its future from music on Spotify and podcasts via Apple.

James Purnell, the BBC’s director of radio, will signal the shift this week by declaring he does not “care” about audience share or beating commercial stations in the battle for listeners....

Mr Purnell will dismiss the shift as irrelevant to the BBC’s mission. He will say: “I don’t care about share. I don’t care about beating Global, Bauer or Wireless in the RAJARs. We care about the future of British audio.”"

The report presently does not say where, or to whom, the speech will be delivered.

Title: Re: BBC Radio "given up".
Post by Administrator on Jun 19^th, 2018, 4:04pm

"The Guardian" reports on the speech, here, given by James Purnell to the EBU, where he said.." the BBC was for everyone. “Everyone benefits because everyone pays. And everyone pays so everyone must benefit.”

He said he no longer cared about Rajars - the industry measure of radio audience numbers - and said BBC Radio’s objective was to retain its existing listeners while reaching new audiences in different ways. "

The Guardian article goes on to say..."The BBC dominates the British podcast market, with a third of listeners finding their favourite downloads on the corporation’s website, according to the most recent report by Ofcom. This has raised concerns among some independent producers that the corporation’s success is blocking the development of a commercial UK podcast industry."

Here is the full speech, courtesy of "Radio Today".