sudanese security forces have fired tear gas at multiple pro—democracy protests in the capital, khartoum. they have also been dismantling barricades that had been erected and set on fire by protesters. the demonstrators had called for two days of civil disobedience to protest against last month's coup. the rappers travis scott and drake are being sued over friday's stampede at the astroworld music festival in the us city of houston in which eight people were killed. prosecutors in texas have filed lawsuits on behalf of relatives against both artists. the stampede happened while scott was performing. the united states will shortly reopen its land and air borders to travellers from much of the world. visitors who are fully vaccinated against covid—19 will be allowed to enter the country after a 20 month ban.

now on bbc news, it's time for the media show. hello. there've been some nervy crossed fingers in the media world. after a long 18 months, we've finally found out who's listening to what on the radio. so, what did we learn from the first audience data the pandemic began? with many of working from home, have travel time 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. 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. we operate six radio stations.

three national radio stations unionjack, unionjack dance and unionjack rock. both of which, those latter two, we opened them during the pandemic. and three stations operating 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 hits and jack 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, creative director at boulder media. you advise audio companies and other strategies. has this last week been a bit like a level results for you? absolutely. it's always like that when new figures come in. everybody wants tojudge themselves against their peers as well as seeing

how they get on. we haven't had any 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, especially some new lunches that were definitely keen to work out of anybody was out there. also with us is miranda sawyer, radio critic at the observer. miranda, do you feel you have to review the programmes with the biggest audience? absolutely not, actually. laughter. it's a bit like there are some - programmes that are absolutely massive — the biggest podcast in the world l isjoe rogan 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 i to see how they're doing, perhaps they have a newl presenter, - and particularly with long—standing| 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? ashley is the senior reporter at the verge this and hot pod and there is no official data for the podcast, how do you know what it's doing well and what is not than? oh my gosh, on a show by show level, it is difficult. put 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 all 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 wise. starting with the radio results, creative director boulder media, what are the radars? what they are is a quarterly snapshot of radio stations so it tells you who's listening, what demographics,

where people are listening, what they're listening on. older devices, modern devices or the internet. and it gives figures for every 15 minutes of every station in the uk. it's 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, on their computer, or if they really want to, they can write it in a book, and they're given a week to fill that in and that all goes into the pot and is measured that way. this time round, they've added some electronic measurements so a few thousand people have got a special app on their phone that listens to audio and ideally listening to the same audio that the humans that have that phone in their pocket also are listening to. and so, they blend some of the data together to get a representation of what people are listening to across the country.

but as you've 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 a 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. can you give a sense from how these stats are to you as a business because presumably, it's not just about basking in the warm glow of doing very well? no, it isn't. as a commercial radio station, by the advertising that we can| carry, and the audiences we can

generate and small media - operators like us, it's also useful and very powerful i to demonstrate the incremental audience that we can add. - and there are a suite of people | who only listen to our servicesj and if you want them, you need to come to our stations - and share very little listening with some of the big national radio stations or some of - the other local radio stations. so it's really the lifeblood of commercial radio. - so 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 in home working, lots of people very much nervous about how that impacted breakfast radio. were they right to worry? i suppose so. during the pandemic, 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 them because nobody was commuting, i think matt would say, i read the analysis and also, there is what used to happen is we had a big peak at breakfast and tea time and that's to do with driving and commuting and because people are working from home, the still pretty much working from home, that has kind of evened out with a slight, instead of it going like this, — this is not working a radio. 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's because switching on what they're listening to, whether it's radio or podcasts, really, and just letting that ride while they're going about their day.

what about daytime listening? because people stuck at home much more over the last year, are they craving the company of the radio? everyone was incredibly worried about podcasts, actually, 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 kind of 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, but 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 that the way a radio station can. it's still the most intimate form of communication, i guess. and also, if you have a favourite station, you just switch it on and they are happy to listen to the vibe that station

throughout the whole day. dick stone, chief content officer atjack media, do you recognise these listening habits? yeah, i think one of the things that is true is because of the time frame, a lot of the methodology in this and radio measurement couldn't take place during the pandemic so these radio 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 bit of a platform shift so people not sitting in the 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 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 but i absolutely 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, etc, but also, it is that friend in the room but from a musical perspective, it's the curation of the output rather than what i'm listening to is driven by some algorithm. but about podcasts perspective, ashley carman, did the likes of spotify, amazon, audible, did they see their podcast stats go up during the pandemic? yes, in terms of research and study, they went up every single years, they did

see growth in the us. we're seeing a ton of investments and also on the radio side of things you see acts like club house, there are acts trying to disrupt radio, if you're trying to capture that same listening experience, i'm not saying they're not doing 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, during the pandemic, news uk launched times radio, so how did they do? they did pretty well. they went in with just over 630,000 listeners a week and that is perhaps small fry compared to something like radio 4 with over 2 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 500,000, that was their aim and that's with 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, radio is partly about confidence. confidence from your own team and also confidence from advertisers, people from your organisations who can suddenly look at your information and say that's a station that i want to back. not jack, i must say — commercial group of stations that when the radio station comes on, and prepend think they would gather everybody and a large environment and tell people about this. it definitely matters to commercial stations what they get. as dick stone was saying, it's the lifeblood in the be—all and end—all. miranda, you work for

the observer but what have you made of times radio? it's clearly done pretty well in terms of listeners but in terms of identity, it's got really strong presenters which is what you need. it's got presenters for the audience and also because the times is obviously a great newspaper, it can promote across the radio but it can pick up little, just little things in an interview perhaps that, say, happened in an afternoon you can then splash on that the next day. they did that with a bill bryson interview, they did that and is that classic thing of a radio presenter getting a quote that was not news. it was already up 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 launched

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 seen the gb news, what talk radio has done — all of those make it would be ceasing real disinterest in the past to have which of being a bit right wing. they are ofcom regulated so they'd say they are impartial. they would, and if you listen to it, you can make your own mind up. yes! i'm glad that there are radio stations catering to different audiences in all aspects. but also maybe does show that people do want something that isn't so fixed in its view. also, what it shows that it's hard to establish a new brand, especially 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 — that can be a challenge for any new entrant and i'm sure that they'll be looking at the numbers and thinking what should they do next. what will be interesting is with talk tv, a decent chunk of talk radio, and i'd expect some of times radio as well being on there. they'll be able to visualise their radio at the moment better 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 come from multi—platform success and 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 the screens becomes more and more important. ashley, i gatherfrom the new york times, they're ratcheting up their

own audio offering. yeah, so it wasjust recentlyl announced that the new york times is working - on an audio—only app so kind of like their own podcast player where, l presumably, — they're going to distribute their shows, maybe - experiment with exclusives — who knows, they said they might so that — i and really trying to bring. people into their ecosystem rather— than control over to spotify, apple, and all the other players _ matt, if we just go back to you, we've spoken about the winners but the people who radio do seem to be losing based on the radar data are younger listeners. why are they switching off in such huge numbers? historically, 15—24s, the younger demographic, they reduce their listening to radio, so this is reach, how many people listen to it. but it's not that much, actually — it's 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, so i think it's easy to jump to conclusions, but when you really dive into the data now, so for teenagers, 15—19, their reach is strong but it has dropped but the key worry for the sector is the amount of radio listening that is 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. what we see with kiss or radio 1 is capital radio at the youth and of the market. but that's quite broad. 15— 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 — tiktok

is hugely popular for that audience and their 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 itjust because it's happened historically, and now, it's got to work hard to re—engage with those audiences. like you say, these are big questions that would keep you up if you're running the a radio station. dick stone, you're big boss atjack radio, is this something that you worry about? yes, i think the interesting thing that matt was saying there in 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 sample lots of podcasts and podcasting more listening, more attention span. so if there a domain map, not taking— so if there a domain map, not taking a— so if there a domain map, not taking a prohibit mat, that's interview_ taking a prohibit mat, that'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 necessarily will do in the radio sector. also you need to market it well. and radio has 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. especially around the youth brands, radio one and kiss. capital, capitalspends a lot of money on it.

we have a clip ofjack radio that i would like to play. leaving work? stand up, pat your pockets, - grab your keys and say "right!" that way, everyone knows your intentions to leave the office. i follow these rules and you are on your way to a distinctly - british way of life. this is union jack. hear more home—grown comedy at unionjack. so that was a tiny clip of unionjack radio, and 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. not everyone wants to do that. what we do with union jack and unionjack dance and unionjack rock — with specific genres — is we focus on the best of british music. so with 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. but we have writers that will write our liners and topical liners every day. 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.

in fact, we run unionjack's comedy club at four comedy clubs across the uk everweek in order to promote stand—up comedy, just as everything in coming back— from the pandemic. and the reason for that isjack 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. i just want to bring ashley into the report 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. yeah, sop spotify is pushing this type of content - as radio, they also - required an app to an app called betty labs and rebranded it as green room. _

it is for live audio. and they are now launching a product car thing, - designed to go _ in the car and give spotify ownership of the car to take it away from radio time. - so not only are the big tech i companies pushing into audio, but they're also specifically i focusing on how they can take over some of that time of radio. - where maybe they lost people before — why do spotify want to be in podcasts? why go into that? 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 forl you to listen to music. if you pay for spotify i and listen to a podcast, they are actually _ double—dipping on revenues so so they're making money off of you because you're - a subscriber-

but they also put ads in their podcasts, _ despite you being a subscriber. so if you're listening to a spotify show, i they're making money off ads and you're also paying them i as a subscriber. so it is kind of win—win for them _ but it is definitely. an investment point. talking a bit about podcasts, they've been this incredibly egalitarian format. the kit is cheap, they're easy to use, not big marketing operation costs, and pretty much anyone can make a hit podcasts. but surely, the problem is getting them heard. how can someone in their bedroom compete with the huge marketing budget of big companies that can promote the content all over the place? yes, it's a very different world. 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, and what they really want to do is just take over your ears. so 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 you are a 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. so if you wanted to listen to the radio, if you have a radio, you can, in ye olde terms, always flip the dial orjust in dab it's the same thing. it's still, the platforming of the smaller podcasts is still really, really difficult for them. especially if you've got big players like literally president obama and bruce springsteen coming in. to me, 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 asked 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. monday morning gets off to a chilly start with a touch of frost around parts of eastern scotland and down the eastern side of england, while the air poised to move back in with a set of atlantic weather fronts bringing some rain into northern ireland, pushing across scotland and in north—west england and wales, central and eastern and southern parts of england clouding up staying largely dry during daylight hours, actually feeling ten in norwich but up to 15 degrees in belfast, the breeze picking up with the rain moving in as well. find breeze picking up with the rain moving in as well.— moving in as well. and further outbreaks _ moving in as well. and further outbreaks of _ moving in as well. and further outbreaks of rain _ moving in as well. and further outbreaks of rain across - outbreaks of rain across scotland, northern ireland overnight and into tuesday pushing into parts of northern england. to the south of that it will stay largely dry, a much milder night on monday night. then on tuesday, some patchy rain in northern england especially to the west of the pennines for wales wishing into parts of the midlands in south—west england, south east england staying largely dry, sunny spells in scotland and northern ireland with a few showers moving their way southwards. it is mild as it

will be for the rest of the week.

welcome to bbc news — i'm david eades. our top stories: chanting. security forces fire tear gas at protesters in sudan, as the demonstrators call for a return of civilian rule. we report from khartoum. after more than 18 months, america finally re—opens its doors, and prepares to welcome fully—vaccinated visitors to the country. prosecutors in texas file lawsuits against the rappers travis scott and drake, after eight people died in a stampede at a music festival. and 70 members of an italian crime family are sentenced in the biggest mafia trial in decades.