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.