Skip to main content

Introduction to radio

BBC Sounds:


1) Why does the article suggest that ‘on the face of it, BBC Radio is in rude health’?

It has half the national market, with dozens of stations reaching more than 34 million people a week. Radio 2 alone reaches 15 million listeners a week and for all the criticism of the Today programme (“editorially I think it’s in brilliant shape,” says Purnell), one in nine Britons still tune in to hear John Humphrys and his co-presenters harangue politicians every week.

2) According to the article, what percentage of under-35s used the BBC iPlayer catch-up radio app?

Purnell says just 3% of under-35s use the iPlayer catch-up radio app, which will soon be axed.

3) What is BBC Sounds?

new app and website. It will bring radio livestreams, catchup services, music mixes and podcasts together under one roof. "The BBC produces great audio and they’ve got the marketing muscle to use BBC Sounds to introduce podcast listening to the large numbers of people who haven’t done that yet,”

4) How do audiences listen to radio content in the digital age?

Podcasts and Spotify, so through external apps and means through phones and devices rather than traditional radio

5) What does Jason Phipps suggest is important for radio and podcast content aimed at younger audiences?

He says there is a need to reconsider the entire tone of how the BBC tells stories, shifting away from rigid formality if it wants to attract the precious under-35 audience: “It has to be a warmer, more story-led journey. You need to report the very personal experience of it. “The very best stories are fundamentally anchored around the personal experience. You’re trying to find the human in the machine. Journalists have a process but younger audiences can find that very cold and want to access the actual response of human beings. They really want to understand the heart of the story.”

6) Why does the BBC need to stay relevant?

“The world in which we offer this amazing idea called the BBC has changed exponentially over nearly a century and particularly in the last decade,” he says. “And because the BBC is really important and valued by licence fee [payers] it’s got to continue to be relevant. 

“Otherwise you leave the BBC set in aspic and increasingly irrelevant. If you believe in the BBC you have to let [it] flourish in spaces where it can have a greater public value than market impact. That’s what we seek to do: be relevant.”

Now read this review of the BBC Sounds app.


7) What content does the BBC Sounds app offer?

The app lets you click through to any live BBC radio station, but it also offers you other forms of listening, from podcasts to playlists.

8) How does it link to BBC Radio?

Allows you to use the BBC sounds app without exclusively needing it for radio, providing other forms of media while also having radio if needed.

9) What are the criticisms of the BBC Sounds app?

Sounds is easy to use, though I found the programme information a little tricky to access, and the search – as ever with the BBC – isn’t sensitive enough. (Looking for the new 5 Live podcast about the Waco siege, I typed in “5 Live Waco”, but only got old programmes). My other main problem is there isn’t enough content. “Spooky Sounds” only offered me 11 shows; “Be Curious” just 10. The BBC has thousands of amazing audio programmes! If you browse podcasts via, say, the Apple Podcasts app, you have 16 categories to choose from, and within each, at least 20 series to try. Sounds needs to feel as packed as Netflix in order to properly work.

10) Two new podcasts were launched alongside the BBC Sounds app. What are they and why might they appeal to younger audiences?

BBC launched a couple of new podcasts, including the aforementioned 5 Live Waco series End of Days (make sure you use a capital D in search, or it won’t turn up: insert rolly-eye emoticon here), and Beyond Today, a 20-minute podcast that delves deeper into the big stories of the Today programme.

They may appeal to younger audiences as it is much shorter than traditional radio in terms of length while also being relevant to popular media that younger people engage with.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Marxism & hegemony: blog tasks

Task 1: Mail Online review of Capital 1) Re-read the  Mail Online review of  Capital . Why does it suggest that  Capital  features a left-wing ideology? Capital was as stuffed full with fashionable causes as Jeremy Corbyn’s function diary. 2) Choose  three  quotes from the review that are particularly critical of  Capital  and paste them into your blogpost. Do you agree with the criticisms? Why? 'With a fizzle like a firework on a wet night, Capital (BBC1) dribbled to a soggy ending.' 'the crime was handed from one cardboard character to the next. That’s not a whodunnit, it’s a cop-out.' 'Everything British came in for a dose of loathing' I think that some of the criticism is fair and that Capital did feel like it did not come to a satisfying conclusion as you might think it would from the stress and fears of the characters in the first episode and are wrapped up in a way that feels like it was done for the sake of just getting the series done and...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blinded By The Light: case study

Background and Production 1) What is the story behind the production of the film? is a rites of passage comedy drama directed by  Gurinder Chadha , who also directed  Bend It Like Beckham . Set in 1987, it revisits Manzoor's teenage years and much of it is directly based on real events. One unlikely consequence of this is that his teenage friendship with Amolak has now been immortalised – not something either of them could have imagined in their wildest dreams. 2) What was the audience reaction to the film? audiences found personal connections to the story. I could not have predicted that Israeli women in Jerusalem, white teenage American boys in Omaha, Nebraska and older white women in Australia who had seen the film would all contact me on social media and thank me for telling their story. I had not expected to be approached, at screenings from Glasgow to Seattle, by people who seemingly had nothing in common with the protagonist but said they had connected emotionally with ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Deutschland 83: case study

  Introduction: Reviews and features Read the following reviews and features on  Deutschland 83 : The Guardian - Your next box set: Deutschland 83 The Guardian - Deutschland 83 Pity the Germans don't like it 1) Find one positive aspect and one criticism of  Deutschland 83  in the reviews. created an irresistible export: a funky exercise in pop nostalgia underpinned by actual events.  It’s a perfect moment in a near-perfect series 2) Why does the second Guardian article suggest the Germans didn't like the show? By focusing the story around Martin Rauch, a young East German border guard going undercover in the west, it doesn’t just make the viewer empathise with a Stasi agent on a human level – in the way The Lives of Others did – it makes us engage with the socialist regime’s worldview, in which a military exercise in West Germany poses a potentially existential threat. 3) Find three 'below the line' comments from either of the Guardian articles. What did th...
Post a Comment
Read more