Radio 4 Podcasting Assignment

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BBC

Radio 4 downloadable programming

22-25 year olds

The BBC provides extensive internet services within which users can ‘listen again’, review programmes, engage in listeners’ communities, provide feedback on programming or use a wide range of educational recourses. The current Radio 4 listenership is one that had acquired the ‘radio habit’ earlier in life and is now biased towards an older age group. Yet, there is a wide variety of programming available that will appear to younger audiences. Younger audiences are also adapting their media use to new technologies and in particular the use of downloaded music. Currently BBC Radio 4 makes a selection of programmes available for podcasting. This brief envisages a time when all Radio 4 audio content will be free and downloadable in this manner.

To stimulate interest and encourage use of Radio 4 podcasting services.

See www.bbc.co.uk - Radio 4

“Open a window on the wider world of Radio 4”

2 colour full-page ads. 2 Posters ads and 1 flyer for distribution in universities and colleges

February 2006

BRIE

FAssignment Brief

Radio 4 Podcasting Assignment

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“Open a window on the wider world of Radio 4”

Radio 4 Proposition

Radio 4 Podcasting Assignment

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CH Podcasts are automated downloads using a combination of RSS

and FTP. They are available through websites such as BBC Radio 4 and allow users the freedom to broadcast their chosen content, for example news, to listen to on the move. Perhaps one reason they are so popular is because podcasts are very simple to use because of the limited material required: a PC, Microphone and Internet connection. (www.linuxformat.co.uk) Only a couple of years after the launch of podcasts, audio on demand requests are already outstripping live stream requests. According to Feed Burner, podcasting grew significantly between November 2004 to February 2005. (skytg24.blogs.com) The service is very quickly becoming an integral and important part of the media mix alongside print and broadcast, serving as a type of ‘citizens media’. Perhaps one of the reasons podcasting experienced a huge boost in their ratings is due to Apple integrating the service into itunes allowing consumers to download a wide selection of audio programs such as BBC Radio 4 onto their ipods. (www.corante.com) BBC Radio 4 is a popular podcast service, particularly downloaded for a wide range of programmes from comedy to news. Radio 4’s main purpose is to “use the power of the spoken word to offer a wide range of programmes that are surprising, searching,

Product and Service

entertaining and in-depth”. (BBC Radio Analogue) According to Simon Nelson, controller of BBC Radio and music interactive “It (podcasting) demonstrates the publics appetites for new ways of listening”. It has been suggested by many sources that podcasting is the ‘rebirth of radio’ (digital-lifestyles.info) and is fast becoming a replacement for radio.

Radio 4 Podcasting Assignment

AudienceR

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H BBC Radio 4’s specified target audience is anyone with an interest in its content of news and current affairs, entertainment and its wide range of programmes with ‘surprising, searching and in-depth’ content, regardless of age, sex or social class. (BBC Radio Analogue) Radio 4 remains the most highly appreciated BBC service and is in fact London’s favourite radio station in terms of reach and share, reaching a fifth of all men and women. Significantly, new media unique users in both the UK and overseas, have doubled since 2002, with this rise driven by comedy such as ‘Little Britain’ and the ‘Today Programme’. (bbc.co.uk server logs) The majority of Radio 4’s regular listeners are from ABC 1 social groups. Top three areas of England with the majority of listeners are, the Southern Counties (31.3%), Oxford (30.4%) and Gloucestershire (29.9%). Under performing areas with the fewest number of listeners are Newcastle (12.2%), Scotland (11.9%) and Ulster (7.7%). There are also a reported number of under performers amongst ethnic minorities. Although Radio 4 offer a wide range of genres, most people tend to listen to Radio 4 for news (approximately 8.19 million according to a survey by RAJAR) which suggests that the majority of the audio podcast downloads from the Radio 4 website are news based. In March 2004 audio on demand, including all genres,

achieved approximately 400,000 requests a week, outstripping live streams.The weekly reach for the specified target audience of 18-25 year olds (as specified in the brief) is approximately 4.5% who listen for approximately 2 hours a week, according to RAJAR. Although this is rather low, BBC Radio 4’s share is held firm among under 25 year olds.

Radio 4 Podcasting Assignment

CompetitionR

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H The Radio 4 podcasting service faces competition from several sources.

Other news media such as ABC News, NBC News have all made their own programs available to download. However, the primarily American focus of these news services is aimed at a slightly different target audience to Radio 4. There is a cross-over with the coverage of international news.

The threat from British News services will mainly come from Other BBC stations.

Popular entertainment companies such as Disney, and companies of huge public interest such as NASA and Apple have recently made Podcasts available on their respective websites.

There is obvious competition from traditional news media, such as Newspapers and Magazines. Although we believe that these are becoming slightly archaic, media group owners have started to make newspaper content available as podcasts.

Traditional Radio poses a distinct threat to the success of Podcasting. It is essential that the benefits of being able to listen back at past material are made aware to the general public.

Telelvision has always been popular and with new technology allowing the viewer to record/pause/play/stop live telelvision, then it is becoming more and more popular. However, this technology has not yet been readily available to people on the move, and so the target audience for the Radio 4 Podcasting service should not be majorly affected.

Thousands of Podcasts are made by people in their own homes and released onto the internet each day (news.bbc.co.uk). The quality of this type of podcast service can vary widly, and the content can often be unreliable and objective.

Other portable media devices such as mobile phones, PSP gaming systems etc. Provide an alternative for the traveller to keep them occupied. Games, Audio, Visual and Text downloadable devices are all becoming very popular. However, there is no reason that Radio 4 cannot use this technology to their advantage and try to capture this market as these devices will also be capable of relaying podcasts.

Radio 4 Podcasting Assignment

Summary of ResearchSU

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The main attraction of podcasts is automated downloads and content on the move. While there are low entry barriers for everyone, consumers would appear to have a preference for commercial quality content.

Apple integrating podcasts into itunes was probably the crucial factor in determining the success of podcasts. Through itunes and other software Radio 4 already enjoys successes with The Today program and other content. This is combined with a healthy Audio on demand service available from the BBC website.

The current audience for Radio 4 is the biggest challenge to come fro the set brief. The weekly reach for our specified target audience is only 4.5%, while the average listener age is in the early fifties. The Radio 4 demographic is also predominately ABC1 and living in the south of the country.

It is difficult to analyse from where the strongest competition will come, due to podcasting being in the the early stages of its evolution. the main areas will likely be big media and mobile operators.

Inline with our proposition we are suggesting to do the following. Pitch podcasting as an alternative to a daily newspaper. The brief envisages a time when all content would be available, so this is a feasible proposition. with ever increasing bandwidth, delivery of multiple editions (morning, daytime, evening) would be possible. In

addition, podcasts can be chaptered allowing the audio newspaper to have equivalent sections to its traditional counterpart.

News is an inexhaustible resource. As podcasts are seen as a scheduled event rather than one offs this would allow the BBC to have constantly changing content rather than merely providing episodes for download. it can be envisaged that consumers could potentially subscribe to just the sections of news they require. Perhaps just headlines and sport. Or indepth if they so desire.

The target demographic will remain ABC1. This is primarily due to the nature of the content. The age will drop to between 22 and 25. And the profile will be young professionals who commute daily.

Radio 4 Podcasting Assignment

Name: Tim

Age: 23

Occupation: InvestmentBanker

Education level: Degree

Other interests: Gym member, RugbyGadgets

Name: Jane

Age: 24

Occupation: Publishing

Education level: Masters

Other interests: Wine, Internet, reading

TAR

GET

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FILE Meet Tim and Jane

Radio 4 Podcasting Assignment

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IAAdvertising Locations and Format

Poster

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Sites

48 sheets20’ by 10’

Maiden Outdoor

Maiden Adrail

Reach 1&2160 @ £900

Sites within 90 minute commute of London

Urbanites100 @ £1000

Sites geared towards MOSAIC group 8 stylish metropolitan young professionals

source: Maiden Outdoor

Magazine

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Spreads

A3297mm by 420mm

T3, GQ, Cosmopolitan

Double Page Spread

1 Insertion@ £3200 approx

source: Future Publishing

Flyer Front

Enjoy your world...

Hear our world...

www.bbc.co.uk/podcast

Flyer Back

Radio 4 Podcasting Assignment

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Justifying our executions

The concept behind our campaign is - Too many people take a great interest in the world, but too little time to appreciate their immediate environment. The newspaper is all very well as a means of communicating news, but it is big, bulky, and even the ‘Compact’ issues obstruct the readers view and often are an inconvenience.

The decision to remove the Radio 4 logo from the final designs was not taken lightly. However, as a group, we came to the decision that the logo has a ‘stigma’ attached to it, and the readers pre-conceived negative perception would act as a barrier, and affect their judgement. In order to relay the fact that it was a BBC service on offer, the main BBC logo has been incorporated into the design, and the black and white gives a more clinical finish than would be available with the pink/blue gradient on the Radio 4 logo.

A website address was also incorporated to direct the viewer to the Podcasting homepage. Hopefully after the initial impact of the adverts working to affect to usher the listener to the website, they will be pleasantly surprised to see that it is a Radio 4 service on offer, and be more willing to give it a try.

There is continuity in all of the adverts, they all contain three people, with one person in headphones able to see what the others are missing out on. The two people reading newspapers are always grey. This is to illustrate that newspapers are black and white, and to read them everything to you is also black and

white, as opposed to listening to the news and looking at the beautiful colourful world around you. There are different adverts for each gender, so they can be specifically placed in magazines and supplements that are aimed towards genders and our specific target audience.

The flyer idea uses the same concept of listening to Radio 4, and viewing your world at the same time. But, as it is aimed towards students, we thought to really get their attention some kind of interactivity would be appropriate, but nothing too challenging, they do enough hard work at university! So the concept of the ‘painting by numbers’ picture on the back of the flyer, gives them something to be occupied with and amuse them, but not really challenge them to a great extent. Just something to doodle on in the bar or on the bus/ tube home etc.