Matthew Revell

This week, Tim Gardam published his government sponsored report into the progress of the BBC’s digital radio stations. One comment, in particular, stood out from his report:

BBC 7 has been the most significant BBC service in driving digital switchover … It has been an important factor in the failure of its commercial counterpart, Oneword, which was a potentially high quality proposition, and which in turn would have brought significant added value to the commercial radio market. Though Oneword may not have succeeded in any event, the BBC’s actions in launching BBC 7 point to serious lessons for both the DCMS and the BBC in the Corporation’s future attitude to its commercial counterparts.

Looking at September’s Rajar figures, I wonder if Wolverhampton’s The Wolf (weekly reach 59,000), Peterborough’s Hereward FM (111,000) or Northampton’s Classic Gold 1157 (24,000) would consider Oneword’s weekly reach of 115,000 people, almost certainly exclusively in the ABC1 demographic, a failure.

Oneword is the cause of its own failure

Anyway, let’s assume Oneword has failed, or is about to, as the Gardam report insists. As I remember, the station’s launch pitch was to provide a commercial, intelligent, speech-based (not talk) radio station, that would appeal to the Radio 4 audience. Although I don’t have the breakdown to hand, I am confident that Radio 4 has the largest share of ABC1 listeners for any UK radio station. Oneword had a unique opportunity to deliver a highly affluent audience to advertisers. Only Classic FM caters for a similar audience, on a commercial basis. Put simply, Oneword had the opportunity to be a commercial success and to be a much loved radio station.

Instead, Oneword largely filled its schedules with audiobooks. Famous name actors reading hour after hour of classic novels and recent bestsellers. That is the primary reason for Oneword’s perceived failure.

Neither BBC7, nor its parent network Radio 4, rely heavily on one form of speech radio. Their success is due to a variety of programming, covering seemingly disparate subjects and, with the exception of much of Radio 4’s 18:30 comedy slot, a dedication to originality.

Novels are not ideal radio

Oneword’s doomed dedication to novel readings - no matter how well produced, or how great the source novel - is a sign of a fundamental misunderstanding of how people, even Radio 4 people, listen to radio and enjoy novels. I read books, of all kinds, when I can. I listen to radio, also, when I can and, very often, when I’m doing something else. Research shows that I’m not alone in listening to radio when I have the opportunity and whilst doing something else.

My listening, and that of the typical radio listener, is usually ad-hoc. It’s rare that I arrange other activities around a radio programme, unless it’s a particular favourite and on at a time that suits me. It’s also unlikely that I can commit to hearing every episode of a radio programme. Consequently, with its demand of hearing every episode, listening to a novel does not fit well with the typical radio listener’s behaviour. Nor, I imagine, does it fit the way that people enjoy novels generally.

Let’s assume, though, that I’m wrong. Imagine that Oneword’s complete reliance on literature - whether through its mass of novels read by actors, or its occasional interviews with authors - is a good strategy. Has BBC7 had an unfair advantage that has prevented people also tuning to Oneword?

Oneword doesn’t promote itself

Gardam is right in saying that the BBC’s digital radio stations have benefited enormously from cross-promotion, on the well established analogue networks, and, to a lesser extent, the national television networks. I’m not sure, though, what point he’s trying to make. I’m sure he wouldn’t suggest the BBC shouldn’t promote its digital stations, so perhaps he wants them also to say, “Other digital radio stations are available”, because we all know the BBC’s charter would prevent them from directly promoting a commercial service, of any kind.

Regardless of whatever promotion the BBC does, Oneword has had ample opportunity to promote itself. We’re not talking about a community-owned station, or something set up by a couple of mates, who just happened to have a radio studio lying around. Oneword was launched with major backers, including the Guardian Media Group, and is now owned by large-ish media group UBC. Budgets may be tight, but I don’t recall seeing any promotion of Oneword in the past year. They haven’t even made anything of their, presently dreadful, website. Digital radio listeners - even now still an early-adopter group - are far more likely to use the web, than the general population.

All Oneword has to do is employ a talented web editor and a web developer-cum-designer, and they’d have an enormous cross-promotion opportunity of their own. At the very least, their schedules should be on the website, not just as unusable Excel or PDF downloads. How about background on the novels they’re reading? What about opportunities to buy a CD of the reading, or a copy of the paperback? Even I can set up an Amazon affiliate account!

Why trust commercial radio with BBC archives?

Simon Cole, chief executive of UBC, has moaned about BBC7 since his company bought Oneword, in January. He complains that BBC7 “plagiarises” his station’s audience. Paul Brown, chief executive of the Commercial Radio Companies Association, goes a step further, and says the BBC should have considered licensing its comedy and drama archives to a commercial broadcaster, rather than launch BBC7. Why?

Licence fee payer money, our money, paid for the programming. If anything, the archive should be freely available to every licence payer in the UK. British commercial radio has contributed next to nothing to good quality radio, over the past twenty years. With the possible exception of XFM, in London, all the conglomerate-owned stations in the UK are produced for one target audience - the lowest common denominator. The fact that the BBC has an archive to argue about, and commercial stations don’t, is a great example of why commercial radio shouldn’t have run a BBC7 alternative.

Commercial radio, in the UK, is useless. Homogeonised rubbish, with soulless presenters, peddling the same terrible music in every town, with barely a nod to originality or their locality. Even the more promising, newer stations, do little to show that commercial radio operators should be trusted with the BBC archive: Kerrang! 105.2 in the West Midlands had an opportunity to offer a true alternative and cater to a large audience who are ignored by other commercial radio. Instead, it slightly tweaks the “twat with a microphone and CD player” format of other local commercial radio, by playing a few more guitar-driven songs. The Guardian’s Jazz FM hardly ever plays jazz; in the UK’s largest commercial radio market, London, you’d have thought they could sustain a station which at least tries to live up to its name (and licence, I should add).

Gardam’s report praises BBC7 as a primary reason for the uptake of digital radio in the UK. It’s no surprise that he wasn’t praising a commercial operator for doing the same.