Interview completed

Alistair and Louis went along to Dreamscope Production yesterday to film with Darren Hutchinson. They were keen to ask Darren about his projects and explore whether the way he works these days is different to that of a decade ago.

They questioned Darren about the impact of social media in the television and radio landscape of today, they also explored the challenges that face broadcasters at this current time. The interview is now being edited, here is a little peek at some of the content

Media convergence is your friend... if you're Radio 1

The last blog I posted, about the impact of social media marketing for radio, was an insight into how one avenue of todays new media arena has provided an opportunity to benefit broadcasters. But just the one avenue: social media.

I’m quite keen to probe into how two successful broadcasters are using (or not using, quite incidentally) and them delve into how one of them is leading the way in online and interactive presence.

The two stations I’d like to look at are actually BBC ones, but I feel their audiences represent two distinct demographics, which in turn will illustrate who is responding not just the rudimentary output on air, but also their cross-media content.

Let’s begin:

Criteria	BBC Radio 1	BBC Radio 2
Target audience	15 - 29	25+
Audience share (of 51,951,000 in UK -RAJAR SEPT 2011)	9.1%	15.9%
	http://www.rajar.co.uk/listening/quarterly_listening.php
How much of that audience has listened/is listening online?	7,852,484 live listening requests in Sept 2011	5,197,388 live listening request in Sept 2011
Average unique website browsers (web surfers)	2,314,357 in Sept 11	382,988 in Sept 11
	http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/siteusage/#notes
Facebook fans	921,848, with 12,532 people ‘talking about this’ at time of writing	13,241 with 817 people ‘talking about this’ at time of writing
Twitter followers	274,126	44,343
Visualisation	Webcam stream for shows, interviews, live lounge streams. Videos available on demand access to content after broadcast.	Pre-packaged videos available after certain events. Prominent gig features available – eg. currently Jo Whiley’s special with Elbow.
BBC Red Button visuals	Regular use for Chris Moyles’ one-off shows and special outside broadcast / live events.	Nothing springs to mind… thoughts?
Blogs	Active blogging from presenters, inc Greg James, Chris Moyles team. Specialist music blogs too.	Chris Evans and Simon Mayo blogs prominent. Specialist music blogs available.
Podcasts	Chris Moyles, Scott Mills, Zane Lowe and other specialist shows.	Chris Evans, Steve Wright, Wogan and other specialist content
Interactivity on air	Texts, tweets and facebook comments, phone calls.	Texts, tweets and facebook comments. Also letters and emails sent in, phone calls too.

Right let’s cut that for the moment, what are we learning here? There’s a lot of information there that gives a good overview of how Radio 1 and Radio 2 are spreading themselves across multiple platforms.

Both of them are doing excellently considering you don’t have to go back far until you hit a point where radio was just radio. Social media hadn’t even been thought of and what you heard on FM was the be all and end all.

However looking at things now, it’s absolutely clear to see that Radio 1 are leading the way when it comes to sharing content. We’ll leave Radio 2 aside for just a moment… Like I said in a previous blog post, ‘Listen, watch, share’ (their new slogan) are three words that capture everything Radio 1 currently champion.

•  Listen: I tweeted earlier this afternoon –

@sirchaddy: post for our media blog: social media is your friend, if you're radio 1. Amazing stats..but they're empty stats- love the output regardless

Radio 1’s output has always been at the top of its game when it comes to providing exciting, relatable content for an audience of 15-29yr old people. No amount of technology, social media or cross-platform content is going to change the great on-air sound (it may enhance it, or give them a different angle for broadcast) but at the end of the day, you need the base of a cake before you sprinkle the sweets on – in essence, you need the quality radio to start with. 

• Watch: This is where technological convergence is entering the radio environment. Over the last 5 years, you’ll have noticed a dramatic increase in the amount of air-time that is given to the promotion of Radio 1’s online videos, their red button stream and the webcam. Every other link seems to be: “go to our website and see the video of this”… “hit the red button and see us doing that”, and so on. Take the Marathon show – I sat there, avidly watching Moyles and his team attempt to stay on air for 50 hours for Comic Relief, what a great achievement. But would it been as emphatic if we couldn’t see their emotions, struggles and guests on television or online? I doubt it. The visualisation team at Radio 1 are enhancing the experience of radio quite dramatically and I think it’s making for, overall, more enjoyable consumption of radio.

• Share: “Go to our website and see the video of this”… “hit the red button and see us doing that” – It’s only any good producing all this fantastic content if audiences are going to go and consume it! The beautiful thing for Radio 1 is their tech-savvy young target audience  - this is where the stats for web listening, browsing, facebook fans and twitter followers really play a part in Radio 1’s ethos. I don’t think Radio 2 could pull off half the visualisation projects that Radio 1 can because they haven't engaged their audience in a receptive way, yet..

However, in a world where ‘two-screen media’ is the norm (ie. when you watch the TV, do you have your laptop on too?) it’s a similar principle with radio. When you listen to the radio over breakfast, are you checking twitter and facebook on your phone or laptop? The answer, on the whole, is yes, and that yes probability is significantly heightened if you’re a 15-29yr old Radio 1 listener. In this respect, the Listen, Watch, Share branding is spot on and their current ethos is seriously resonating well with the audience they have. 

Okay, time to flip this on it's head for just a second. Radio 1's average listener is 32 years old - that fits in Radio 2's bracket, and if they're sharing content readily, then Radio 2 could potentially be missing out on a whole gold-mine of listeners who would happily re-post, re-tweet and generally share their amazing content. To push that thought even further, in todays world, who even knows where sharing stops? This links back to the point I made in my last blog about Facebook users - the largest growing segment of users on Facebook is over 35... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090330091555.htm Surely there's some work to be done here for Radio 2.


So where media convergence is an opportunity for Radio 1, it is a challenge for Radio 2 - a station with a bigger audience but less of a grasp of its online interactive market. I don't think we live in a world anymore where any broadcaster can say "our audience is not interested in cross-media content". We have come on so far from those days of purely FM radio and we are continuing to develop how much multi-platform content we create.
If I was a programme controller I wouldn't be looking for standard radio shows, I'd be looking for a cross-media package with the radio show driving it. That seems to be Radio 1's way of doing things, not seeing it so much for Radio 2...

Louis.

Essay plan - Challenges

I did some thinking on the train last night about what I could include in the 'Challenges' section of the essay that I am concentrating on. From the various literature I had on me, I found a couple of sources but highlighted some key areas to comment on:

Challenges:

• ·      Technology is confusing
• ·      Copyright issues for institutions
• ·      People beginning to lack important social skills as a result of communicating electronically.
• ·      It’s expensive keeping up with today’s technology
• ·      Hard for audiences to keep up with advancing tech / more cross-platform media
• ·      Print industry loosing money year on year
• ·      Online products inaccessible to some areas of the UK
• o   http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/01/home-broadband-download-17-gigabytes
• ·      Media institutions becoming bullies – eg. X factor exploiting contestants
• ·      Lack of mediation
• ·      Increasing competition across all platforms
• ·      Syndication of programming means job cuts – how do insititutions then expect to improve with less talent at their disposal?
• ·      Audience fragmentation
• ·      Confusion between secondary and primary media
• ·      How does the tabloid press re-establish a good name after scandals?
• ·      How do small institutions keep up with the advances large companies in the same market are making?
• ·      Citizen journalism making an impact on large press journalism.

 Television is the main platform, integrated with the (mobile) phone platform for audience feedback, and supplemented by the web platform. (see BBC)

A convergent media infrastructure is composed of practices, artefacts and social arrangements (Star & Bowker).

Redefining resources: 1) audience as a resource; 2) recycle and reuse your resources (assets)

Doyle, G. (2010). From Television to Multi- Platform: Less from More or More for Less? Convergence, 16(4), pp. 431-449.


Louis.

LinkedIn Social Media

Social media and the opportunities that come from today's online networks really captivate me. Reading about social media is something I'd probably do by choice, in a bid to extend my knowledge when it comes to marketing my own 'brand'.

However, this media convergence project gives me an ideal opportunity to explore how businesses and people are marketing themselves through social media on the internet, as a direct result of the proliferation of participatory media platforms.

I joined a LinkedIn group earlier today called Social Media For Radio, which has some really interesting content and posts that are absolutely relevant to the competitive and frugal radio industry that I absolutely love operating in. In Radio Programming: Tactics & Strategy by Eric Norberg (1996 [but still as relevant today as it was back then]) you'll find the author explain that: "commercial radio stations cover their costs from the sale of airtime", "the commercial raison d'être is delivering audiences to advertisers rather than programmes to advertisers". As a broadcaster myself, it's sad to accept that - I am a great champion of creative, programme-oriented radio, especially specialist content. However, to make more money as a radio station, you need a bigger audience so your airtime is worth more and in turn your advertisers pay you more.
Sure you could do a big-money, branded 'Capital FM' style advertising campaign on the television:



However, virtually no stations have the money to throw at a nationwide advertising campaign, let alone get those music stars together for a video shoot! And Capital's brand (the hit music network) is very easy to capture in a video. A small local station whose USP is their local content is slightly harder to market in the same manner.

Also, for a local radio station, even a paid-for online or printed ad campaign could well set them back financially so it's a risky option.... But without alerting the unknowing public to the existence of their sweet sound on the airwaves, how on earth is the struggling station ever going to acquire more listeners and thus a bigger audience for their hungry advertisers?

That's where social media marketing enters the fray. It's free, and there's a huge opportunity (when executed correctly) for a lot of people to hear about the product. It's a cost effective way of delivering a larger audience to the guys the pay - the advertisers.

Look at Radio 1's recent news intro - 'Listen, watch, share'. The 'watch' part is interesting because a lot of Radio 1's key content is being made available to view on the red button or online. Radio 1 make use of a full visualisation department! The way that Radio 1 are spreading themselves across different media platforms highlights the reality of media convergence at work.
But for me, the 'share' part of their ident is crucial. It proves that 'sharing' content, information, music and news in any manner (but let's be fair, probably on the internet) is a massive part of Radio 1's ethos, and it works with their target audience. Young people are so switched on when it comes to sharing links and content with their mates on Facebook and Twitter so the opportunities for a piece of Radio 1's output to go viral are huge. I will revisit all these points about sharing content in another blog I think, there's so much to say!

Quite basically though, social media opens a whole ocean of opportunity for cash-strapped stations to reach new audience members through content being shared.
Yes, Radio 1 have captured an audience who do readily share content, but it is cross-generational, and realistically a lot of middle-aged people are sharing content on social media too. In 2009, a Kansas University Professor, Nancy Baym explored the dynamics of Facebook and found that the "fastest-growing segment on Facebook ... now is people over age 35".
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090330091555.htm

That's where this handy group I found on LinkedIn becomes so relevant. There is a whole community of social media experts dispensing valuable advise for free, meaning the cash-strapped station even gets a walk-through guide on how to achieve a strong marketing campaign online! The opportunities for marketing a product virally are immense, but there is also a flip-side to the opportunity. We'll explore that another time too, for now I'll leave you with a link to this post.

http://www.linkedin.com/news?viewArticle=&articleID=895203908&gid=2753612&type=member&item=80411226&articleURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Echristopherspenn%2Ecom%2F2011%2F11%2F4-vital-search-strategies-for-social-media-marketers%2F&urlhash=DsTc&trk=group_most_popular-0-b-shrttl

As a result of using the online resources that can be accessed so easily just by having a LinkedIn account, I've taken on board the author's recommendation of further reading, a book called 'Content Rules' by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman. Should be interesting reading.

Louis.