BBC Audience Council Wales audience outreach event with students at Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor, Pwllheli, January 2015

This was one of a series of audience outreach activities undertaken by the BBC Audience Council Wales to gather the views of audiences regarding BBC Three so as to inform the Council’s advice to the Trust as it conducts a Public Value Test to consider the BBC Executive’s proposals to make BBC Three an on-line only service. The Council member present also sought the views of the students on the BBC’s radio stations, so as to inform its advice to the Trust on the Service Review of the BBC’s speech radio stations which is currently underway. There was 1 Audience Council Wales member present. The discussion took place in one group and there were around 15 students present with all but two of them being young men.

BBC Three

BBC Three was a popular choice for most present with programmes such as Family Guy, American Dad and Russell Howard’s Good News all mentioned as popular choices. When asked about their response to the BBC’s proposals to make BBC Three an on-line only offering, there was a mixed response. Some were concerned since the speed of broadband available to them was low (“iPlayer is really slow”) while others said that they already viewed a lot of output via mobile devices. Around half those present said that they viewed content via the iPlayer. As one participant put it, “mam and dad are downstairs watching the TV while I’m watching stuff on my phone upstairs”. A number of participants were Netflix subscribers and so regularly viewed content on-line. However, there was a consensus that having it on-line only “would make it far less convenient to view than being on TV”. 

BBC Three’s 60 Second News was considered worth watching by most participants.

Other TV output

The BBC’s drama output was particularly appreciated with one participant speaking for them all when he said “you get quality from the BBC”. The BBC’s news output on radio, TV and on-line  was also appreciated, though it was the BBC’s news programmes on TV that were the main means of accessing news for many of those present.

Sport was also important to those present, and they said that their first choice for viewing rugby international matches was S4C because of the quality of the commentary in Welsh. However, they also watched other sports coverage.

Documentaries were a popular choice for all those present with David Attenborough’s natural history documentaries considered by them all to be appointments to view. As one participant said “We need more things like Planet Earth”.

Radio

A number of BBC radio stations were listed by the students, with BBC Radio 5 Live, Radio Cymru and Radio 1 / Radio 1 Xtra and Radio 2 all mentioned. Travel times were clearly the period when most radio listening occurred and the choice was dictated to some extent by the person driving the car. Radio Cymru attracted a variety of views, with one participant of the view that he didn’t like the music played by the station, while another said that it was his station of choice when training at the gym.

On-line and on-demand

There was praise for BBC Bitesize’s on-line resources, though a recognition that it was targeted at school age students, and was therefore of less use to them in their further education. 

Other general BBC comments.

One of the key attractions of the BBC’s TV output was the absence of adverts.