BBC Audience Council Wales audience outreach event with students at Coleg Sir Gâr, Llanelli

This was one of a series of events arranged by the Council to gather the views of audiences on the BBC’s national radio stations in Wales and its provision of news of Wales. This is in preparation for the BBC Trust’s forthcoming Service Review of the BBC’s output aimed specifically at the devolved nations. The discussions also included the views of participants on the proposals that BBC Three should become an on-line only service in view of the BBC Trust’s consultation on the provisional conclusions of its Public Value Test on the proposal. The event was arranged through the good offices of Coleg Sir Gâr with particular thanks to Lowri Morgans. The young people present were around16 years old and lived in a number of different places across south west Wales. The discussion took place in two groups with ACW member Rhian Connick leading the conversation.

Radio

The main period for listening to the radio was while travelling in the car, and the choice of listening was to some extent dictated by the car’s driver. However, Radio 1 was a popular choice amongst many, with a number of participants saying it was their first choice. Radio 1 was a particular favourite for its coverage of festivals and the Live Lounge was also popular. One participant said “I love Radio 1’s evening schedule and listen to it as background music”.

Radio Cymru was also popular amongst some participants, with the station’s coverage of rugby and its coverage of the National Eisteddfod considered particularly good.

Radio Wales was also chosen by some, with one participant saying she liked to listen to Eleri Siôn in particular, while travelling home from college. Another participant said that he really enjoyed listening to Rob Brydon on Radio Wales on Saturday morning.

Radio 4’s comedy output was also mentioned as a listening choice with some downloading episodes they had missed to their iPods or would use the radio iPlayer to catch-up.

Television

BBC is best for sport

There was low awareness amongst participants of BBC Three as a channel but high awareness of the programmes on the channel, with Russel Howards’s Good News, Stacey Dooley investigates, Being Human, Torchwood, Don’t tell the Bride and Barely Legal Drivers all mentioned as programmes enjoyed either past or present.

There was a lengthy discussion on the BBC’s proposals to make BBC Three an on-line only service, and while some participants agreed with one who said “when I watch TV programmes I usually do so on-line” others felt that it would be a loss, since their usual means of finding BBC Three programmes was through ‘channel surfing’. One participant expressed the views of a number of others when he said “why close BBC Three when BBC Four programmes could easily go on BBC Two”.

Popular BBC TV programmes included The Great British Bake Off and Sherlock and there was a strong feeling that the BBC should provide output in all genres including entertainment and popular factual. Drama was a particularly popular genre , but many felt that while they enjoyed Y Gwyll / Hinterland, it was a shame that there were not more programmes, and not more drama in particular, set in Wales. There was dissatisfaction at the length of time between the series of Sherlock – “two years is FAR too long to wait between series”. While a number were big fans, others were not so sure about the direction being taken at present by Doctor Who, with one participant saying “the writers have changed the storyline too much, and the current Doctor is too old, and is losing lots of younger audiences.”

There was a consensus too that sports coverage was better when undertaken by the BBC, with its coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games and Glasgow Commonwealth Games highly regarded. One participant summed up the views of a number when he said “BBC is best for sport – I hate that the Rugby World Cup is on ITV. I don’t like the adverts for one thing.”

News and Current Affairs

There was recognition of the importance of news and politics coverage in the BBC’s output, and the first thing said at the session was that impartiality was central to the BBC’s work. It was also emphasised with some vigour that it was crucial that the BBC’s news was “entirely independent of political interference”, and while it was important that politics was covered it was “important to keep the politics factual – I hate bias”. Another participant expressed dismay at some of the lighter political coverage, saying “Ed Milliband eating a bacon sandwich is not politics – keep this kind of nonsense off the TV news coverage.”

A number of the participants watched the 6 and 10 o’clock Network news, with BBC Wales Today also being required viewing for many. However, one participant expressed the view of a number of others when he said “The news needs to be relevant to Wales – Network News needs to give FAR more attention to Wales.”

A small number of the participants used the BBC News app, or accessed news on-line, with the latter being accessed more often than not via a search engine such as Google. Those that used the BBC News app had personalised the settings so as to prioritise news from Wales and matters of particular interest to them. Others said that they accessed news through the BBC’s Facebook page or by accessing it via trending stories on Twitter. There was low awareness of the BBC’s Cymru Fyw service, and no awareness at all of other on-line Welsh language news services.

On-line and on-demand

On-line was a major source of music for the participants, with iTunes, Spotify and Google+ all mentioned in this context.

Use was made however of the both the iPlayer and radio iPlayer to access music via tablet devices. One participant said “I use the iPlayer on the lap-top – usually going to the home screen in the first instance”, some also accessed the BBC iPlayer via devices such as the X-box or PS4 so that they could view content on the iPlayer via their TV. Some of the participants also accessed other video on-demand providers, with Netflix mentioned. As one participant put it “I love the variety, and can create your own schedule or watch a whole series in one sitting”.

The BBC’s Bitesize provision was warmly praised and levels of awareness and familiarity were high, though some suggested that it would be great if BTEC courses could also be covered by Bitesize.