The BBC saga- Episode 2: Audiences

So week 2 of our adventures at the top of the hill revolved around that key thing for any media, the audience.

Our session this week was taking with the unique named Audience Editor Andy Roach. Any media savvy chap know that all media tends to have a target audience, like Teletubies is for (well supposed to be) young children and The World today on Radio 4 is for new savvy mature adults above the age of 30.

Though this week we took a focused view on how radio stations measure audience and specifically how the figures for radio stations in Lincoln look. We first did a short pub quiz (minus the beer) in which we had to guess the percentage of listeners for radio stations for adults and teenagers in Lincoln. Then we looked at habits of BBC Lincolnshires target audience (roughly fifty year olds with an interest in Lincolnshire.)

The not so pub quiz stats:
Adults of fifty to seventy years olds in Lincoln listening habits:
BBC Lincolnshire- 17%
Lincs FM- 37%
Capital FM- 9%
Smooth- 6%
Classical FM- 12%
BBC Radio 2- 28%
BBC Radio 1- 28%
BBC Radio 4- 14%

Listeners 15 to 23 year olds in Lincoln listening habits:
BBC Lincolnshire- 0%
Lincs FM- 46%
Capital FM- 34%
Smooth- 7%
Classical FM- 5%
BBC Radio 2- 10%
BBC Radio 1- 41%
BBC Radio 4- 6%

Average listeners to each radio station in Lincoln:
Lincs FM- 44 years old
Capital FM- 33 years old
Smooth- 51 years old
Classical FM- 58 years old
BBC Radio 2- 52 years old
BBC Radio 1- 38 years old
BBC Radio 4- 60 years old

Owners of a digital radio 3 years ago among listeners: 15%
Owners of a digital radio now: 25%

Stats on the habits and life's of BBC radio Lincolnshire listeners:
Work- 29%
Retired- 55%
Visit the website- 27%
Use the website daily- 17%
Not everyday- 43%
Own a mobile- 69%


Now these figures opened my eyes to one thing, their isn't that much radio listening youth as I expected and their is much more of a selection locally and that most people seem to supplement this with more national stations.

Further more Andy broke it down for the two types of listeners they receive:
Utility listeners- These people listen for a specific reasons, like the news or for information on a big event like a snow day
Emotional listeners- These people have a bond with the station, it's like swearing by a product like cadburies over Mars. They could have a bond or liking with one of the presenters or just enjoy the programming.

Another key thing here that made this all possible was RAJAR ( Radio Joint Audience Research) the data research group for British radio. They took 600 people in Lincoln of a wide variety who over a week noted down which radio stations they listened to, which show, what time and day. This then gives radio stations a chance to see what working and what isn't, like if their day time stuff is working well or not.