injected with drugs. now on bbc news, it's time for the media show. hello. there have been some nervy crossed fingers in the media world. after a long 18 months, we've finally found out who is listening to what on the radio. what did we learn from the first audience data since the pandemic began? with many of us working from home, have breakfast shows and drivetime favourites taken a hit and how has broadcast radio done against the giants of silicon valley with their well—funded podcasts? let me introduce you to today's guests. dick stone is chief content officer atjack media. for audiences that don't know, what is jack media?

jack media group is one of the very few remaining completely independent radio groups in the uk and we operate six radio stations. three national radio stations unionjack, unionjack dance and unionjack rock. the latter two launched during the pandemic. and three stations operating in the oxfordshire area. jack fm which is the first jack station in the uk and a format which originally started in north america, and jack 2 hits and jack 3 and chill. those are the six services that we operate at the beginning of the pandemic and there were only four and now there's six. you have done well and expanded and we'll come to chat with you a bit later on about that and also joining us today is matt deegan, creative director at folder media. you advise audio companies on strategies. has this last week been a bit like a level results? absolutely. it's always like that when new figures come in.

everyone wants tojudge themselves against their peers as well as seeing how they get on. we haven't had any rajar data, the audience data for 18 months, because of the way it is collected and the pandemic got in the way of that. a lot of stations waiting for these numbers, especially some new lunches that were definitely keen to work out if anybody was out there. also with us, miranda sawyer, radio critic at the observer. do you feel you have to review these programmes with the biggest audience? absolutely not, actually. it's a bit like there are some - programmes that are absolutely massive, the biggest podcast in the world isjoe rogan- and i feel absolutely no compunction to review that at all. i'm much more interested _ in new and interesting and sometimes i go back to very— long—established radio shows to see how they're doing, perhaps they have a new presenter, i and especially with long—standing i

radio programmes, they kind of tick along and if you go back— to review them every week, | everyone would just be like, what's the point of that, really? fair enough. ashley carman is the senior reporter at the verge and lead writer at hot pod. there is no official data for podcasts, so how do you know what's doing well and what is not then? oh my gosh, on a show by show level, it is difficult. but this is the case for people who aren't just journalists, the case for advertisers, brands, you're going on the trust system a little bit. i don't want to bore everyone with the technical things, but there are ways to do it on a technical side. but for us third parties, it's pretty hard. we're kind of relying on trust and serving data as far as industry wide stance. starting with the all important radio results. matt deegan, what are the rajars? what they are is usually a quarterly

snapshot of radio stations who is listening, what demographics, where people are listening and what they're listening on. dab radios, fm radios, modern devices or the internet. and it gives figures for every 15 minutes of pretty much every station in the uk. it is actually one of the biggest surveys in europe. they speak to around 20,000 to 25,000 people every quarter. and ask them what they listen to. people keep a diary and that can be on their phone, the computer, or if they really want to, they can write it in a book and they're given a week to fill that and that all goes into the pot and is measured that way. this time around, they've added some electronic measurements and a few thousand people have got a special app on their phone that listens to audio, ideally listening to the same audio that the humans that have that phone in their pocket also are listening to. and so, they blended some of the data together

to get a representation of what people are listening to across the country. as you just said, we haven't had any data for 18 months and that's been because of the pandemic and now that they've changed methodology, is it really fair to compare these figures to pre—pandemic figures? yes, about 80% of the information still comes from the regular methodology that's always existed. i've had a big deep dive into the data and what i would expect has come through and seems a pretty good like for like comparison to what happened previously. dick stone, can you give a sense how vital these stats are to you as a business because presumably, it's not just about basking in the warm glow of doing very well? as a commercial radio station, we live and breathe _ by the advertising that we can carry, and the audiences we can generate and for| small media operators

l like ourselves, it's also useful i and very powerful to demonstrate the incremental audience that we can add. - there are people who only listen to our services - i and if you want to get to them, i you need to come to our stations or they will share very i little listening with some of the big national radio— stations and some of the other local radio stations. _ it's really the lifeblood of commercial radio. l and it's very much - the be all and end all. as you say, it is the lifeblood. there's a lot to unpack in the data. who were the big winners and losers? miranda sawyer, the pandemic saw a big shift to home working, lots of people very nervous about how that impacted breakfast radio, were they right to worry?

yes, i supoose so. the bbc moved shows, so they were very aware of people working from home and so breakfast shows that started earlier were shifted later and in order to kind of work with that because no one was commuting, and i am sure matt will say, and ashley, what used to happen is we had a big peak at breakfast and tea time and that is to do with driving and commuting, and because people are working from home, they're still pretty much working from home, that has kind of evened out with a slight, instead of doing this, it's doing this. i was about to say, i can see your hands, but... now it's kind of a small hill rather than a suspension bridge

and that is because they're switching on what they're listening to, radio or podcast and letting that ride while they're going about their day. what about daytime listening? because people stuck at home in the last year, are they craving the company of the radio? it's interesting. at the beginning, everyone was incredibly worried about podcasts but radio did really well during the pandemic because people were stuck at home and the one thing that radio is really good at is the community. it was interesting being an audio reviewer at the time because all the other art forms dropped off. and so suddenly, every time we reviewed anything, it was on the front page of the observer which is unusual for me. and what people wanted was a companionship and i do think that radio is really excellent at that. there's a lot of podcasts that can do that but didn't do that throughout the day the way a radio station can. it's still the most intimate form of communication.

and also, if you have a favourite station, people just switch it on and they are happy to listen to the vibe of that station throughout the whole day. dick stone, do you recognise these listening habits? yeah, i think one of the things that is true of the latest rajar results, is because of the timeframe, a lot of the methodology in this and radio measurement couldn't take place during the pandemic and so, these results don't really reflect what happened during lockdown, for example, and for that, we might turn to our own streaming stats. those are factual numbers, we could see how many devices are connected and how many people are listening and that shot up dramatically during the lockdown period and undoubtedly, there was a platform shift and people not sitting in their car in the morning and listening to the radio in the car and listening on other platforms, smart speakers, etc.

there was a bit of that going on but i think also, the pandemic and working from home rather than being say in an office environment where the radio station was maybe chosen for you, you can choose your own radio station and maybe explore some radio stations that you might not have listened to before. so, i think there was a lot of that going on and absolutely i agree with miranda. the thing that radio delivers more than anything is the ability to be topical, to be insightful with the day's events but also, it is that friend in the room but from a musical perspective, it is the curation of the output rather than what i'm listening to is driven by some algorithm. what about podcasts? ashley, did the likes of spotify, amazon audible, did they see their podcast stats go up during the pandemic? yes, in the us we get

reasearch from eddison, they release research every single year about podcast listening in the us, and this year did see growth. we are seeing a tonne of investments and also on the radio side of things there are acts trying to disrupt radio, if you will, trying to capture that same listening experience, i am not saying they're doing it well but they are trying. but there's a lot of investment and we're seeing that pay off, in the sense that more people are discovering podcasts and just audio in general. matt, in the pandemic, news uk launched times radio, and so how did they do? they did pretty well. they went in with over 630,000 listeners a week and that is perhaps small fry compared to radio 4 with over 2 million listeners and they've done 10

million listeners and they've done very well for a long time. and they weren't really sure what they'd get. they were very hopeful to get over half a million, that was their aim and that's what they told their advertisers, and so, i think they are pleased with their first book. and it also shows a lot of opportunity for growth still. quite often, rajar is partly about confidence. confidence from your own team and also confidence from advertisers, people in your organisations who can suddenly look at your information and say that's a station that i want to back. can i say really quickly that i know of a commercial group of stations, not jack, when the rajars came out, pre—pandemic, they would gather everybody in a large environment and tell

people off whose rajars were lower. it definitely matters to commercial stations what they get. it's the lifeblood and the be—all and end—all, as dick said. miranda, you work for the observer, a rival newspaper, but what have you made of times radio? i'm interested to know. it's clearly done pretty well in terms of listeners but in terms of identity, it's done wuite well. it's got really strong presenters which is what you need. presenters familiar to the audience already, and also because the times, is obviously a great newspaper, it can promote, it's had enormous straplines across about the radio but it can pick up little, little things in an interview that perhaps they happened in an afternoon you can then splash on that the next day. they did that with a bill bryson interview and it's that classic thing of a radio presenter getting a quote that was not news. it was already out there but then the times can treat it as news because it came out on the radio. the combination of the two works really well. they have some great presenters

on there, i must say. news uk have announced they are launching a tv station, talk tv, but matt, how has talk radio performed? talk radio was up based on its figures previously. it probably maybe didn't see the growth that they perhaps hoped for. the interesting question about more right wing type media operations, we have seen gb news, we have seen what talk radio has done, all of those make lbc seem really centreist and in the past, that got accused of being a bit right wing. they are all ofcom regulated so they'd say they are not right wing and that they are impartial. they would, and if you listen to it, you can make your own mind up. yes! i think it's good that there's a broad selection of radio stations catering to different audiences, politically, economically, musically, all of those sorts of things. but also maybe it does show that

people do want something that isn't so fixed in its view, and also what it shows is it's hard to establish and launch a new brand when there's a lot of competition and from others and to cut through audiences who are incredibly passionate about the radio stations they listen to, and that can be a challenge for any new entrant and i'm sure they'll be looking at the numbers and thinking what should they do next. what will be interesting is with talk tv, they... a decent chunk of talk radio. and i would expect some of times radio as well to be on there. they visualise a lot of their radio at the moment anyway and it looks good, it looks kind of tv like, and maybe they'll find an audience in that place. a lot of radio growth has partly come from multi—platform success from visualising and spin—off services and investing in web content and social media. rather than just what comes out

of the speaker, what comes through all the screens becomes more and more important. ashley, i gatherfrom the new york times, they're ratcheting up their own audio offering. it was just recently announced - that the new york times is working on an audio—only app so kind . of like their own podcast player where presumably they're - going to distribute their shows and maybe experiment- with exclusives, who knows, and maybe, really trying to bring people into their ecosystem ratheri than ceding control over to spotify, apple, and all the other players. matt, if we just go back to you. we've spoken about the winners here. the people who radio do seem to be losing based on the rajar data are younger listeners. why are they switching off in such huge numbers? historically, 15 to 2a, the younger demographic,

they reduce listening to radio so reach, how many people listen each week. but it's not huge, about 10% over the five years which actually does better than facebook, which has lost 17% of the young audiences over the past two or three years. i think it's easy to jump to conclusions, but when you really dive into the data, 15—19s, their reach is strong but it has dropped but the key worry for the radio sector is the amount of radio listening that has dropped significantly from the audiences. it's dropped a0%. so, teenagers are radio's future listeners and so if the industry wants to regain them, they probably need to think more about how they reach them with what they do already, but also creating services particularly for them, and what we see with kiss or capital or radio 1, the youthier end of the market. that's quite broad. 15—year—old and sa—year—olds live quite a different lifestyle and i think

radio somewhat ignores teenagers and reflecting their world. at the same time, there's quite a lot of interesting media for that group and tiktok is popular for that audience and they're spending 40, 50 minutes a day on tiktok because it speaks to them. it's people like them performing or creating content that they want to consume. so, the challenge for all media is to work out what that audience wants and how do they create content that they like? radio doesn't have a god—given right to every demographic consume it just because it's happened historically, and now it's got to work hard to re—engage with those audiences. these are big questions that would keep you up if you were running a radio station. dick stone, you are a big boss atjack radio, is this something that you worry about? yeah, i think the interesting thing that matt was saying there is the question that goes through my mind is cause and effect, which could be

going on there as well. undoubtedly, teenagers and the usage of radio has been depressed, but equally, a lot of programming that is aimed towards teenagers is very short attention span stuff and instant gratification, and yet we know that demographic also sample lots of podcasts and podcasts take more listening, more attention span. not taking over here but matt, let's interview you. do you think there's an element of, if you build it, they will come? you need to have something for them which they don't necessarily do in the radio sector. you need to market it well. and they been very lucky in it hasn't had to spend lots of money putting friends and spent on computer consume them because you have

the radio dial that people stumble across in their cars and so the radio sector, capital, capitalspends a lot of money on it. we have a clip of jack radio that i would like to play. let's listen to that. leaving work? standup, pat your pockets, grab your keys and say - "right." that way, everyone . knows your intentions to leave the office. follow these rules you are under way i to a distinctly british way of life. . this is union jack. hear more home—grown comedy at unionjack. that was a tiny clip of unionjack radio, and i'm talking about capturing the teenage market. with jack, you don't have djs

for much of the day, and it's just music. but if i wanted music, i could just find it myself on a streaming platform, so why would i go to jack radio? you could say the same for many radio stations from time immemorial, you could say if i wanted some music i could play it myself. but not everyone wants to do that. what we do with unionjack, union jack dance and union jack rock, specific genres, we focus on the best of british music, unionjack is both pop and also rock, but solely british artists, and an important part of what we do is also the comedy. so, there was an attempt at comedy that you just heard there. we have writers that will write our liners and topical liners every day and we have comedians that work with us like josh berry whose podcast is up

for a comedy award. and we work with numerous comedy clubs around the country, we run union jack comedy club in order to promote stand—up comedy just as everything is coming back from the pandemic. the reason for that is jack has always been a disruptive brand. the genesis of the jack brand in north america was in a world where there is very formulaic, formatted radio, the way to stand out against that is to do something different and that is what jack is all about. ijust want to bring ashley in here because the irony is that the streaming platforms have been incredibly disruptive in one sense of traditional radio but spotify for example is now pushing into speech content. they're pushing this type of content

but they also required _ an app to an app called . betty labs and rebranded it as green room. and they are now launching a product designed to go. in the car and give spotify- ownership of the car to take it away from radio time. and now the big tech companies are pushing into audio, - but they're also specifically focusing on how they- can take over somei of the time of radio. why do spotify want to be in podcasts? spotify wants to get into podcasts because every time you listen - to music on spotify, they actually have to pay the people, - but they cannot put ads in it. so they're playing for| you to listen to music. if you pay for spotify i

and listen to a podcast, they are actually double dipping on revenues so they're - making money off of you, but they also put ads - in their podcasts, if you're listening to a spotify- show, they're making money off ads and you're also paying them as a subscriber. | but it is definitely. an investment point. miranda, talking a bit about podcasts, they've been this incredibly egalitarian format. cheap, easy to use, not big marketing operation costs, and anyone can make a hit podcast. but the problem is getting them heard. how can someone in their bedroom compute with the huge marketing budget of big companies that can promote the content all over the place? over the last two or three years, it's really changed. we have just been people talking about spotify and apple and all these big players, google,

what they really want to do is just take over your ears. spotify, obviously it does in terms of money but it doesn't matter if you're listening to music or a podcast — that is just taking over your earphones. if it is the person who has had a great idea for a podcast, the main thing that is really difficult is getting the podcast heard because there still isn't quite, not yet, although these big companies are really pushing, there isn't a real natural platform for everyone to go to. if you want to listen to the radio, if you have a radio, you can always flip the dial orjust it's the same thing. it's still, the platforming of the smaller podcasts is still really, really difficult for them. especially with big players like literally president obama and bruce springsteen coming in. it's very hard for smaller podcasts to be heard and i think it's part of myjob to elevate some of these tiny podcasts

because for so long, there are so many great smaller podcasts that were made and they still exist but not everyone will get to find out about them, and that's myjob, really. how do you find them? my dms are open on twitter. i'm quite approachable. i listen to people who have good taste and i scour around and sometimes ijust ask people on twitter, "i'm bored of my own tastes, what do you like?" social media is important in this way. you'll have to let us know who comes by your way after this. but thank you, that's all we've got time for. thanks to all my guests. the media show will be back same time next week. but for now, thank you for watching and goodbye.

hello. the wind has been a feature across the northern part of scotland as we go through sunday. some of the gusts in excess of 100mph earlier. the rest of today, the wind gradually easing. the low pressure that brought the strengthening wind gradually eases as well. not quite losing all of this influence, it takes some time before the isobars open up and the tail end of a weather front just open up and the tail end of a weather frontjust keeping those showers going across the very far north—east. keeps the breeze quite noticeable. elsewhere, first signs of the wind dropping out is that little ridge of high pressure comes through. as this sky is clear after dark, temperatures tumble and we see that process continuing across the

east of scotland and england. eventually, if you are very prone, you will end up with a touch of frost perhaps at the heart of east anglia or one or two sheltered spots in scotland but out west, different story, increasing amounts of cloud keep the temperature up throughout northern ireland and the far west of scotland, perhaps into the far south—west of england but that increasing cloud isjust the south—west of england but that increasing cloud is just the first signs of a new set of atlantic fronts gradually making themselves known across central and western parts of scotland, throughout northern ireland, and the first part of monday, it's a dry start across parts of england and wales. eventually, the cloud thickens across the north west of england, through the north of wales and eventually into the afternoon, you get to see some quite heavy bursts across the cumbrian files. generally speaking, further south and east you stay dry, not overly warm in east anglia after a chilly start but a little bit of sunshine. you could be looking at 12 or 13. on towards the

middle part of the week, notice how this weather front clears towards the near continent, a portion of it wants to come back towards the british isles. at the same time, that will introduce some really quite mild airagain, that will introduce some really quite mild air again, especially across the greater part of england and wales, just that little bit fresher away from the frontal zone across scotland and northern ireland. not appreciably cold but a little bit fresher than how you started the week, the middle part of the week in the south you could see 14 the week in the south you could see 1a or 15 and a fair amount of dry weather. goodbye.

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