Part One: Understanding audiences

Understandingaudiences

Consultations, research andAudience Councils: those weheard from and what they said

BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2013/1431

Understanding audiences

Enabling everyone to have their say
We heard from a range of audiences, in particularthrough our surveys and public consultations
linked to major pieces of work.
The Trust’s duty is to reflect the interests of all licence fee payers
and to make decisions that are in the public interest. We makesure we are well informed about audiences’ views through anumber of means, both direct and indirect. There are manyindustry as well as BBC surveys that measure audienceappreciation of programmes, such as the BBC Pulse Survey, andothers that look at consumer trends, such as Ofcom’s market
surveys. These tell us which BBC services people use, and throughwhich channels, and what people think about its and others’
programmes and services. The Trust also has direct ways ofhearing what the public thinks; these include public consultations,audience research, and feedback from our four national Audience
Councils (see page 34). The responses we get, alongside our otherevidence on audience perceptions and behaviour, help give us afully rounded picture of public opinion to inform the decisions wemake on licence fee payers’ behalf.
Public consultations
Public consultations enable anyone to have a say. We always
consult when we review a BBC service and also for some otherwork – this year, for example, we consulted on guidelines forcoverage of the Scottish independence referendum. In the lastyear we carried out seven public consultations, and heard from
more than 13,000 people across the UK about BBC Television andBBC News and other matters. We also received consultation
responses from a range of organisations including industry bodies
and voluntary organisations.

ResearchOur main piece of research is the annual Purpose Remit Survey
which measures the BBC’s performance in delivering its six public
purposes. We also commission a mix of quantitative andqualitative research which, together with our public consultations,gives us a detailed picture of what our audiences think about theBBC’s services. This year we commissioned specific research toinform our service review of the BBC’s network news andcurrent affairs, and for our review of BBC Television.
Purpose Remit Survey
This survey asks licence fee payers for their views on how importanteach of the BBC’s six public purposes is to them, and how good theBBC’s performance is in each case. It also includes some generalquestions such as whether the BBC offers good value for money.
This year, more than 2,250 adults from across the UK were selectedto participate in the survey, enabling us to represent the views of
a diverse and fully representative group of licence fee payers.
As in previous years, about six in ten thought that the BBC offered
good value for money. Previously, black audiences have given
much lower ratings than the average, so we were pleased to seethat their perceptions of value for money rose considerably from
36% in the last survey to 50% today. Also in line with previous
years, 78% of people said that they would miss the BBC if it were
not there – a higher figure than for any other UK broadcaster.
Opposite is a summary of the results for each public purpose.

Sonita Alleyne at an Audience Council meeting32BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14

Sustaining citizenship and civil society
Public perceptions that the BBC offers high quality, independentjournalism dropped last year to 65%, and we said then that thiswas likely to have been because the high profile problems in theBBC had affected audiences’ perceptions and trust. However,the score remained the same this year, and some supplementary
qualitative research we carried out suggests greater competition
in online news may also be affecting people’s overall opinions
about the BBC’s journalism.

Promoting education and learning
People score this, along with ‘bringing the UK to the world andthe world to the UK’, as the BBC’s most important public purpose,and the BBC received the second highest rating here, with anaverage performance score of 70%. ‘I have learned new thingsfrom the BBC’ again scored 74%, while ‘the BBC helps children/
teens perform with what they learn at school/college’ was slightly
lower at 67%.
Bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK
The BBC received the highest rating for this purpose, with anaverage performance score of 73%. The statement ‘The BBC
helps me understand what is going on in the wider world’ scoredhighest of all statements in the survey, at 80%.
Delivering the benefit to the public of emerging communications,
technologies and services
Over the past three years there has been a steady improvementin perceptions that the BBC provides quality content on mobile
phones and tablets, such that most people today believe this to be
the case. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, younger people’s perceptions
have improved most, while people over 55, who tend to use theseplatforms less, are less positive.

Representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities
The extent to which audiences in the devolved nations perceivethat the BBC represents them well in network output remains
low, at about 50-55% of respondents on average. The score forrepresentation in network news coverage ranges from 47% in
Scotland to 57% in Northern Ireland, the latter being a significant
increase from last year.

Stimulating creativity
Though the gap has
reduced, there is stillroom for improvement in
the creation of fresh andnew content.

77% of audiences thought that
fresh and new ideas were important77%

But only 61% of audiences
thought that the BBC hadlots of fresh and new ideas

61%

-16%

Representing life
in Scotland, Wales,
Northern Irelandand England
The map shows the% of people in eachnation who think
the BBC is good atrepresenting their life
in news and current
affairs content.

47%

57%
53%

60%

2012/13: -23%
Fallen short

BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14

33

Part One: Understanding audiences

Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence
An important part of creativity is having fresh and new ideas,
and this is something the BBC has been particularly focusing onin recent years. We were therefore pleased to see that this year,
for the first time since the survey has been running, theperception that the BBC has plenty of fresh and new ideas
increased, from 56% to 61%. However, the BBC’s performancestill does not match high audience expectations in this area so,while we welcome the improvement, we will continue to look formore progress. It is likely that some of the improvement is related
to the BBC’s newer digital services such as apps, since the main
improvement in this score came from 16 to 34-year-olds who
are most likely to use them.

Understanding audiences

Audience Councils
Audience Councils in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland ensure that the interests of audiences across the UK are
at the heart of the Trust’s work through their regular input into
our discussions. They monitor audience views and assess BBC
performance in each nation, reporting monthly via their meetings
and annually to the whole Trust. Through their work, they help
to identify audience needs as a starting point for service reviews,
and each year they assess how the BBC is performing foraudiences in each part of the UK.

How the BBC performed
Members told us that audiences across the UK think the BBC’sservices are performing well. However, Councils suggested that
more television programmes made by BBC Scotland, Wales andNorthern Ireland should be broadcast on the national networks;that content for audiences in the devolved nations including local
news and factual content should better reflect changes in society;and that it would be desirable to extend political coverage on local
radio in England and to safeguard the relevance of regional
television current affairs in England.

Reflecting audiences’ views
Councils are recruited to reflect the diversity of the UK and arechaired by the Trustee for each nation. Some Councils hold public
meetings with licence fee payers and consider a range of otheraudience information in order to formulate their advice for theTrust. This year the Councils focused their work on BBC Television
to provide input into our service review. They emphasised to
the Trust that audiences believed that BBC One should takemore creative risks and that BBC Two should be more innovativeand distinctive.

Audience Council priorities for the year ahead
The Councils use insights gathered from their meetings withaudience members and research to identify priorities which theypresent each year to the Trust.

Informing the work of the Trust
We use the advice from Councils in our regular discussions withthe Executive. This year, following the review of how the BBC
is governed, specific sessions were introduced on how well theBBC performed for audiences in each of the nations based onreports from each Audience Council.

This year the Councils said that audiences wanted to see more
network programmes reflecting different areas of the UK and
more network news reflecting public policy issues in the devolved
nations. They noted a desire for news and discussion programmes
to contain a broader range of views and voices, to better reflect
the diversity of viewpoints. The Councils felt that Radio 4 inparticular could work harder to serve audiences outside theSouth East of England. They also said that when new technicaldevelopments like HD and the iPlayer Radio are introduced,
programmes and services for audiences in the nations and English
regions, and in indigenous minority languages, should be included
from the outset.
An annual review from each Audience Council is available on
their websites.

Audience Councils monitor audience views and assess BBC performance34

BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14