Manx Radio and 3FM - listening figures

[CrazyDave]

17 hours ago, Kopek said:

A million squids for a dwindling audience? Doesn't seem justifiable?

I regularly check in on MRs online 'news'.

Is there an alternative????

I reckon I could do it for 600k.  I might need to employ an assistant for £35k

[Wake Up Call]

Manx Radio do a great job advertising what's on at the theatre, the Villa, bus and transport offers/promotions and those great steam train adverts. These commercials must make loads of money for the station.

[The Voice of Reason]

21 hours ago, woolley said:

I've said this before, and it's controversial, but I have misgivings about the RAJAR process. It's an animal of the industry which is enough for me to be wary of it. It's supposed to be open and transparent, but I'm not convinced. It's like the association of widget manufacturers running a survey to tell me that some widgets are more popular than others, but on the whole widgets are still very popular indeed. Hmmm.

Well I had one of their chaps ( at least I think it was a RAJAR chap) visit our house to ask me about and note my radio listening habits. A nice fellow.

For a £5 gift voucher or a donation of that amount to charity  ( I chose a Cancer one) I agreed to record my radio listening habits for the next week in a  sort of diary thing.

Which I did . May not have been absolutely accurate but was a fair representation of.

Oh, and I also got an eco friendly pencil for my effort.

After that exercise they tried to tempt me to keep a similar diary for a year with some financial reward. Not enticing enough to make me monitor and record  my radio listening habits, for 12 months, or even make them up, so I politely declined 

[Fred the shred]

When the offering on Sunday lunchtime is a discussion between Phil Gawne and Chris Thomas are you really surprised the listening figures have gone down ?   Torture by gobblegook  🤣

[genericUserName]

On 10/26/2023 at 11:11 PM, Stu Peters said:

The answer is to fund it from the TV licence fees paid to the UK.

The answer is to gradually switch off old fashioned broadcasting. All of it - even including DAB and satellite. The frequencies could more usefully be used for data.

Broadcasting belongs to another era.

[The Voice of Reason]

4 hours ago, Fred the shred said:

When the offering on Sunday lunchtime is a discussion between Phil Gawne and Chris Thomas are you really surprised the listening figures have gone down ?   Torture by gobblegook  🤣

Better than the bloody irritating pretend horse race thing on a Thursday and Friday morning. It really is a heap of shite which insults your intelligence.

( I shall preempt some smartarse saying I have no intelligence)

[The Voice of Reason]

56 minutes ago, genericUserName said:

 

Broadcasting belongs to another era.

Could you elaborate please?

[CrazyDave]

59 minutes ago, The Voice of Reason said:

Could you elaborate please?

These days you can listen to whatever you want, whenever you want without touching a radio.

You do it on your phone, tablet or computer or you ask your smart speaker.

Why would you have a broadcast schedule dictate what you listen to when you can literally listen to whatever you want whenever you want?

It’s the same as TV in 2023.  Nobody watches what is broadcast unless it is live sport or a major event.  You watch what you want when you want.

[Roger Mexico]

On 10/20/2023 at 5:20 PM, Roger Mexico said:

There must be a high proportion posts on MF (a very high one from some people) that can be summarised as "The Government should only spend money on things I like or need and nothing on anything else, no matter how popular or essential to many other people.  No one on Earth should be permitted to have interests that are other than mine at this moment".  

This may come as a shock to some people, but apparently most people want to listen to the News when it is, er, new.  So even if they are listening via the internet they will be doing so 'live' rather than on demand.  And even when they are listening on demand, those programmes still have to be made, which is what costs the money rather than the actual broadcasting of them.

[Roger Mexico]

On 10/27/2023 at 11:11 PM, woolley said:

I've said this before, and it's controversial, but I have misgivings about the RAJAR process. It's an animal of the industry which is enough for me to be wary of it. It's supposed to be open and transparent, but I'm not convinced. It's like the association of widget manufacturers running a survey to tell me that some widgets are more popular than others, but on the whole widgets are still very popular indeed. Hmmm.

But that's going to be true of nearly all industry surveys (except maybe things like Which).  The only people who are going to be interested enough to spend money to find stuff out are going to be those who have interests.  But what keeps these things honest is the fact that the individual companies represented are in rivalry and so want to know the truth about their opposition[1].  They stuff won't be fiddled because there's no way to make everyone the winner.

It may be that accompanying press releases and the like will present stuff in the best light, but the figures are going to be as accurate as they can make them.

[1]  There's an additional thing about RAJAR, which is that the public only get to see the headline figures and subscribers within the industry see more and participating stations get their full details.  So stations can adjust their programming based on which shows are popular and so on.

[Kopek]

It's easy to see that customer ratings can skew the Which? ratings, both brand loyalty and defence of their spending can influence their rating?

If someone has spent a 1k quid on a Neff  microwave as opposed to 90 quid on a countertop micro, they are much more likely to protect their spending than critisise the micro.

How embarrassing to brag about your German micro for it to breakdown compared to the 90 quid model!!!

Similarly, those who listen to MR are more likely to 'over rate'? it even though their preferred watch id BBC1??? ( other channels are available?).

[IOM]

11 hours ago, CrazyDave said:

These days you can listen to whatever you want, whenever you want without touching a radio.

You do it on your phone, tablet or computer or you ask your smart speaker.

Why would you have a broadcast schedule dictate what you listen to when you can literally listen to whatever you want whenever you want?

It’s the same as TV in 2023.  Nobody watches what is broadcast unless it is live sport or a major event.  You watch what you want when you want.

What a complete and utter load of nonsense. Maybe ask yourself why on the island over 40,000 people listen to 3FM or Manx Radio or why 13 million listen each week to Radio 2 across .

I tell you what take a trip to the boardrooms of ITV , Bauer Media, Global who are some of the widely respected profitable media groups and tell them nobody listens to or watches their output and their product is not needed and see how long it is before they show you the door ! 

[CrazyDave]

10 hours ago, Roger Mexico said:

This may come as a shock to some people, but apparently most people want to listen to the News when it is, er, new.  So even if they are listening via the internet they will be doing so 'live' rather than on demand.  And even when they are listening on demand, those programmes still have to be made, which is what costs the money rather than the actual broadcasting of them.

It may come as a surprise to some other people, that a lot of people these days don’t ever watch or listen to live news as there is no need.

”Alexa, give me my daily summary”

Any time of the day or night and I get my own mix of national and international news tailored around my own interests and favourite sports.

No need for live news at all, and it’s read by a robot from what she gathers online.

Everything else comes from my own news feeds and the internet.

[Parsley the Lion]

Manx Radio is a Public Service Broadcaster and as such its programming is subject to reflecting the community it serves. As a PSB it should not necessarily broadcast programming that is designed to attract the biggest audiences although like the BBC it needs to justify the public financing that it receives.   The current anomaly in the listening figures is due to the massive increase Manx Radio received in listening during the pandemic as would be expected as it was the key source of the Islands information on the ever-changing issues - the BBC experienced the same swell in audience. It is a known fact that that in times of trouble PSB's are what people turn to in order be kept informed as they are licenced as primarily talk based stations whilst stations like 3FM are music stations and do not have the band width in their licences to broadcast the amount of speech required to cover the topics. What we see now is a return to the pre pandemic 'balance' between the stations. What should be remembered also is that both stations do not have totally separate audiences as people switch between them at certain times of the day and days of the week. What should also be remembered is that should Manx Radio be taken away, or its subvention discontinued then the BBC would have to set up on the Isle of Man in order to fulfil their charter of PSB in all regions of the British Isles and we would have a similar broadcast network as Jersey. The argument regarding the licence fee is a nonstarter as if the Island doesn't pay it then the BBC will simply geo - lock the online services such as the iPlayer and BBC Sounds which in the future will most likely form the majority of their online output.  What needs to happen is that Manx Radio improve their service and do what they are good at rather than trying to compete with music stations. 

The previous administration at Manx Radio developed very strong links with the BBC and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association which provided some very valuable training, news integration services and support, all of which were given at no cost. The station also won the ‘Nations & Regions’ award 4 times during that tenure and was highly regarded within the industry. 

Broadcast output is very subjective and can be argued about until the cows come home. Fundamentally Radio is a ‘friend’ that sits quietly in people’s homes on a day-to-day basis, and it is only when a change is made that people start to get upset or in the case of the Ken Bruce issue on Radio 2 - very upset. Radio has to move with the audience if it is to survive, and someone once said to me that ‘people grow into Manx Radio’ which would make sense as the issues of the Island become more important to people as they mature, have families and have increased responsibilities in their own lives.  Today there is more choice than ever within audio media however very little of it is relevant to the Isle of Man in the way that Manx Radio is. That is not to say that Manx Radio is perfect (in the ears of the listener no radio stations output is ever perfect) but it is relevant.  What Manx Radio does have to do is not become complacent, it must move with the times and not fall into the ‘doom loop’ of broadcasting content for contents sake. It would do far better to follow the less is more approach, broadcasting less very high-quality programmes, rather that programming that simply fills the time inventory.

The issue of how Manx Radio is funded is one of those old chestnuts like the BBC licence fee that always attracts a lot of debate. The fact is that PSB is expensive to produce, and Manx Radio needs all the help it can get from the BBC and CBA in order to deliver a service comparable with BBC local radio and from the other commercial stations on the Island. If the Island want’s, its own PSB outside of the BBC network than it has to fund it. The hybrid model of Government subvention and commercial advertising revenue is not unique in broadcasting but can be challenging to manage as excessive profits from the commercial sector cause as many eyebrows to be lifted as do losses.  Many people don’t like the fact that we pay the BBC licence fee as well as the IOM government supporting Manx Radio, but I would argue that they are 2 different services. Personally, I think that Manx Radio should be fully funded by the listener as it is a Public Service Broadcaster, and the clue is within the name Public Service – so if it is a true Public Service the public should pay for it like the buses. This is the way that the Nordic countries have dealt with PSB and have simply added a few Euros to everyone’s household rates for the service. Couple this income to a fully detailed service provision plan and the issue WOULD dealt with once and for all.

 

Food for thought…………………………………..

[La Colombe]

Bit too much food there.