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However, alive and kicking as radio is, it does face increasing
threats today. The developments taking place right now are as
challenging as any I can remember since I joined the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ many
years ago. And, if we are complacent, radio will increasingly
struggle to compete effectively with other media and, for the
³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, its long-term role in delivering public purposes will
diminish.
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What are those threats?
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Listening declining
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Whilst overall reach to radio remains static, at around 90% of
the UK population – a remarkable figure when you think of all the
alternative ways that now exist for people to spend their leisure
time – since 2004, the long-term growth in radio listening per
head has declined, as average radio listening per head fell by
around 6%. And this decline is most marked with younger
listeners. Over time, this drop in listening, could translate
into falling reach.
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So are we are at a crucial moment in the history of radio where
we have to be "reborn"?
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Radio is an incredibly powerful medium, reaching millions yet
capable of having a one-to-one relationship with every single
member of the audience. A voice in your head, uniquely personal,
to which many people form a strong emotional attachment. A medium
that has thrived in the face of revolutions and threats over the
years, from the start of television to the development of
internet, radio has embraced those threats and led the way for
the rest of the broadcasting industry, by grasping the
opportunities of technology and of the internet in particular. In
facing the new challenges we must never forget why radio has been
so resilient.
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What makes today more challenging?
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The economic climate
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Let's start with the economic climate. As we all know, it is not
just the financial and housing markets that have been having a
turbulent time recently. Everyone will have been watching with
concern the difficulties that commercial radio has had over the
past year.
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I'd like to say at the outset, and not just because Fru Hazlitt
is with me on the platform, that radio in the UK will not thrive
without a healthy commercial sector. I believe in radio as an
industry. The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has no wish to exist in a vacuum. Uncertainty
over funding is a big threat to us all, and to our audiences. In
radio, just as in television, commercial competition has made the
³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ sharpen up its act time after time. That has benefited
audiences. We depend on our partnership with the commercial
sector to promote digital, to develop audience research, to raise
awareness of the industry.
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Costs are a constant issue and, when the commercial world is
having a hard time, there's a tendency for various siren voices
to have a go at the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ. But with a below-inflation licence fee
settlement, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is not immune to funding pressures.
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We all know that investment in platform development is vital if
radio is going to thrive in tomorrow's media market. Simulcasting
on a range of platforms is an expensive business. FM, AM and not
just DAB, but satellite, digital cable, DTT, IP platforms, WiFi
and others. But simulcasting is expensive and the age where
distribution was a minor percentage of radio's costs is past.
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Audience expectations
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Audience expectations are constantly changing, especially among
younger age groups. Radio must meet the expectations of a
generation that takes for granted increased choice and control
over its media consumption.
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So we must constantly build on our record of innovation. Radio
led the way for technology that is now transforming how audiences
access both radio and television programme content.
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The obvious example is the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ iPlayer, which has been in the
news such a lot recently. The take-up since it was launched last
Christmas has been remarkable. In its first three months there
have been around 42 million programme requests. The figure has
been growing approximately 25% month-on-month.
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In all the excitement about the iPlayer let's remember that
radio pioneered the idea of putting audiences in control of their
listening. It was the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's Radio Player, first launched in 2002,
that made programmes available both live and on-demand for seven
days after broadcast.
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Since 2005 almost every ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio programme has been available on
the radio player, creating a massive, constantly changing library
of music, talk shows, dramas and documentaries. Demand has grown
every year. Last month live streamed listening totalled 17.2
million hours. On-demand listening was 7.3 million hours.
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Podcast demand has also risen strongly since we first tried out
the technology in 2004. Last month we met demand for a total of
16.4 million MP3 downloads.
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Technological uncertainty
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Millions of radio listeners like the flexibility offered by
digital technology. They have shown themselves ready, willing and
able to try out new platforms.
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However, the biggest danger we face at present is technological
uncertainty, and this particularly applies to DAB. There is no
doubt that recent press coverage, fuelled by Fru's strategy for
GCap and public statements, put a question mark over the future
of DAB that should concern the whole industry.
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The UK radio sector as a whole is small compared to TV and
broadband and is almost completely dependent on ad revenues and
the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Licence Fee. At the same time, commercial margins have
fallen significantly. This makes it harder for the commercial
radio industry to make long term strategic investments and
continue simulcasting on a wide range of digital platforms.
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So is DAB a failure or is it a success story?
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Let's look at the successes.
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More than 22% of UK adults say they now have DAB at home
and that figure is forecast to reach 30% this year;
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DAB accounts for 10% of all radio listening;
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Recent RAJAR figures showed that nearly 5.6 million
people tune into ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio by DAB every week;
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The hours that people spend listening to DAB exceeds the
combined listening to radio on all other digital platforms,
including digital TV and the internet.
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Of course digital television and the internet are important ways
of delivering digital radio and they will grow. But to think the
radio industry can do without DAB is incredibly shortsighted. It
might deliver for shareholders in the short term but in my view
we would end up with a diminished role for radio in the UK
broadcasting landscape. It would shrink support from the people
who count – the audience.
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I am taking this opportunity to stress once again that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is
full squarely behind DAB, as a crucial part of our multiplatform
radio strategy.
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But we recognise there are issues that have to be overcome.
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coverage;
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affordability;
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quality of reception;
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attractiveness of devices;
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industry cohesiveness;
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technology certainty.
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They are not easy barriers to overcome, but they are not
insurmountable!
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The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is collaborating with the whole of the industry to ensure
DAB is a success. I welcome the recent agreement to work with 4
Digital Group to develop DAB as a key platform for the future of
digital radio because I strongly believe DAB must remain at the
heart of the UK digital radio experience. The reason is simple:
it is the only platform that replicates some of radio's strongest
features. It is both portable and easy to use. At the same time
it gives listeners more choice and extra features such as
programme information and storage. All kinds of people love it.
Young and old.
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Increase population and geographic coverage
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So how are we going to overcome those barriers? Let's take
coverage. As we all know, DAB coverage is incomplete. The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's
national multiplex serves 86% of the UK population which means we
currently only cover around 60% of the country.
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We have committed to building out our coverage. It will rise to
90% population coverage in the next five years, but will only
give a maximum of 70% geographic coverage. Can we do that
faster?
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We believe the Digital Radio Working Group should consider ways
to help dramatically speed up growth of geographical coverage.
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The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, commercial radio, and our transmission providers, have
no agreed planning model for digital radio or common measurement
for the UK. Instead of the three different methods that
currently exist I hope the DRWG, under Barry Cox's leadership,
agrees a single planning model and common measurement and with
that a plan to fill in areas where DAB coverage has "holes",
thereby providing the consistent reception that DAB is capable of
delivering.
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Broadcasters must work with multiplex operators and Ofcom to
deliver higher signal strength which will improve the quality of
reception across the UK.
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And then we should create a national coverage database, based on
this single planning model, and made available online to the
public.
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Promote DAB
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We should also co-ordinate our promotion of digital radio so it
is most effective. The reinvigorated DRDB must ensure active
industry support and promote the idea that digital radio delivers
and pioneers innovative and enhanced services.
Can we achieve a joint marketing approach with one message
marketed consistently across the industry and with a single brand
for digital radio? I hope so.
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The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ recognises its role to promote the take up of DAB,
working in partnership with the commercial sector. Our campaign
on television at the end of last year helped to ensure that
targets for 2007 were exceeded. Two million DAB radios were sold.
There are now seven million sets in the UK. That is a huge vote of
confidence by the British public. The challenge for us all, ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ
and commercial, is to keep up the momentum.
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If we are serious as an industry in making radio work in the
digital world then we have to collaborate. The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ and commercial
radio should collaborate to deliver a universal standard
electronic programme guide.
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I really hope, though I recognise it will not be easy, that
Barry Cox will be able to publish a clear roadmap on how the UK
will move to a fully digital radio environment as the key outcome
of the DRWG.
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Importance of mobile
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Please do not get me wrong. I am not saying DAB is the only
platform radio needs to get right. In particular, delivery over
the internet will be increasingly important as broadband Britain
becomes a reality and more IP-enabled devices become mainstream.
We need to be in the mobile world on mobile devices. We are
already important in the on-demand world and that will become
more and more important fuelled by WiFi radio, podcasting and
IPTV. We need to provide data services, visual radio where
appropriate and effective archive services. We need to do all
that, and make DAB a success.
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Content
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But I am not going confine my remarks at a "radio reborn"
conference to the issues of digital. I have left the most
important issue to last. It is the one that I feel most
passionate about. It is the one that really matters to audiences.
It is the one that will decide the fate of radio in the future,
just as it always has in the past.
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Without content there will be no future. Content is everything.
Content is what matters to audiences. Everything else, all the
digital technology in the world, comes down to convenience.
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Radio 4's current six-month season of programmes, 1968: Myth Or
Reality, demonstrates the point. This is content with a capital
C. It has taken a phenomenal amount of research. It has huge
scale and ambition.
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For instance, John Tusa's Day By Day series, recreates 1968 in
sound, every day for six months. It is a massive undertaking to
bring memories alive from sound, print, film and television
archives.
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The season delves deeper still into the year that has so much
resonance for today's world. There are special programmes on
everything from the US Army's tapes about the My Lai massacre,
forgotten for 40 years, and Enoch Powell's Rivers of Blood
speech, to Lenny Henry's quest to find out what was really so
great about Bob Dylan.
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Studio discussions, from Paris, Prague and Chicago, and specially
commissioned dramas, telling the story of protests, upheavals
and assassinations around the world. And everyone who was there,
and can remember as I remember, can take part in Memoryshare,
which is gathering stories sent in online.
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Some of the programmes from a long list. If the "re-birth of
radio" meant we had to pare back the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ, content of this scale
and depth would undoubtedly be lost. That is something I believe
it is in the whole industry's interests to guard against. Public
service broadcasting must have the financial ability to sustain
content of such ambition.
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Great content, first broadcast on radio, is part of the cultural
life of the nation.
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Bazalgette
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I cannot miss this opportunity to disagree profoundly with
Peter's thesis.
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What a misunderstanding of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's mission today. It is, as it
has always been, to entertain as well as inform and educate. And
people pay the licence fee and expect the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ to provide
programming of relevance to them, whatever age they are or
demographic group.
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In tough economic times it is all the more important that the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ
should maintain its investment in radio. As the music industry
will testify, Radio 1 and Radio 2 support UK talent, new music
and live performance. They underpin the nation's cultural life in
the broadest sense.
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They also provide news and information for mass audiences and for
young audiences – think Jeremy Vine and Newsbeat – and broadcast
documentaries and social action campaigns that have a valuable
social role. For all these reasons it is vital that Radio 1 and
Radio 2 remain part of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's public service portfolio.
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Peter wants the money for theatre, opera, and museums to offer
their own services because, he believes, they are denied access
to broadcasting. Well Peter they are not denied access to ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ
Radio. Over the past year, just some of the examples of our
partnerships with public service arts organisations:
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We have recorded productions of Othello from the Donmar,
the award-winning performance from Chiwetel Ejiofar;
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The History Boys, Nick Hytner's National Theatre
production;
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The acclaimed Sheffield Theatre's production of
Schiller's play Don Carlos with Derek Jacobi;
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most opera productions from the Royal Opera House;
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Carmen from the ENO;
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from the Cheltenham, Hay, Aldeburgh and Edinburgh
Festivals.
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Next year we will be telling the history of civilisation through
the objects of the British Museum – a 100-part series on Radio 4
from the Director of the British Museum. The list can go on and
on.
You do not need to destroy Radios 1 and 2 to ensure that our
great cultural institutions are given access to broadcasting. To
do so would be a cultural travesty and confining public service
broadcasting into cultural elitism.
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Summing up: Freedom to experiment
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In summing up I would say this: radio cannot be re-born without
freedom to experiment. The whole joy of radio has been its
capacity for innovation and surprise. It has been a constant
voyage of discovery, from the pioneering broadcasts of the 1920s
to the digital world of today.
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We must continue to innovate by our use of technology, by our
creation of new formats, embracing new platforms, and above all
investing in great content. If we do all that radio will be re-born again and again and continue to have the most personal
relationship with audiences. Without that there will be no radio.
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