It's
decades since they aired any shows that I would be interested in
listening to.
I can
live with it moving on though.
The old
making way for the new so to speak as it's the natural progression of
things.
You can't
halt time.
Everyone
is aware that the shows that they air aren't really looking to draw
in a 40 something who describes himself as music lover, and that's as
it should be.
As the
BBCs flagship radio station it's remit is to aim the content at a
younger, and far hipper, audience.
But is
that working for them?
This
morning I read an article that was highlighting how the big hitter in
their schedules that is The Breakfast Show has lost 500,000 listeners
since the younger, and slimmer, Nick Grimshaw replaced the older. and
cuddlier. Chris Moyles.
Half a
million listeners gone in a year.
If every
listener was a tenner then the programmer would be on the deck of the
ship shouting women and children first.
The
figures were already on the slide prior to Mr Grimshaw taking over,
but his arrival did nothing at all to put the breaks on, and people
are still apparently jumping ship at a rather alarming rate.
I would
hazard a guess that the powers that be looked at the slight decline
under Moyles and thought a fresh voice would attract a younger
audience as maybe the bright young things weren't engaging with him
any more.
They were
probably right about the younger audience looking for their kicks
elsewhere, but they were lost to their ipods and breakfast television
rather than another radio station.
So what
they were left with was Grimey Shaw grating on the nerves of the
listeners who where either commuting to their work, or just about to
indulge in their first dip into the corn flake bowl.
Not an
attractive option for anyone out of short trousers.
On the
plus side they are stating that there has been a rise in the 15-25
age group listening in.
The 15-25
group sounds like a holiday package booze cruise, but I digress.
Nearly a
quarter of a million all in is what they say, but if they are down
half a million, but gained a quarter then doesn't that mean that they
actually lost three quarters of a million listeners and then clawed
back a quarter?
So who
were the approximately 750,000 that have walked away from the
Breakfast show in the last twelve months?
I'll
hazard a guess and say it was mainly people over twenty five.
The rise
of listeners to Chris Evans on Radio 2 by virtually a million seems
to lend credence to them not leaving radio, but instead that they
simply migrated to another show that airs on what used to be Radio 1s
poorer cousin.
Remove
the happy clappy spin from the BBC about attracting a younger
audience to Radio 1 and behind it there must be a sigh of relief that
the migrating listeners didn't wash up on the shores of another radio
station that wasn't sheltered under the BBC umbrella.
This has
got me thinking though.
If Radio
1 lends itself to being number one, as in the best, then wouldn't it
have lost it's crown to Radio 2 by now.
Maybe if
the BBC treated the stations like football teams then we would see
radio 1 being relegated in the league tables with Grimshaw and his
team having to look at a drop in their wages to reflect their newer
and less lustrous position.
If the
BBC really want to give the people what they want then that's the
majority, and it would seem to be that they are all on Radio 2 now.
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