BBC bids for online catchup service for UK's radio stations

2:45p.m., Mon 23 Mar 2009

This started as a comment on Matt Deegan's post, but quickly got out of hand, so I'm posting it here....

Matt Deegan writes: "News in the MediaGuardian today about the BBC's olive-branch to commercial radio with the potential creation of Listen Again for all of UK radio (commercial and BBC)."

It's an interesting and intriguing article. But, to me, it still seems like a half-baked idea.

I'm not entirely sure that commercial radio listeners want or need listen again or 'programmes on demand' services. Commercial radio relies on listeners listening out of habit rather than any considered choice. Why would fans of Magic listen to yesterday's mid-morning show when today's show is reliably so similar? Most commercial radio is so repetitive an lacking in complexity - it's been designed and programmed to be listened to in half hour chunks. It certainly hasn't been designed to be listened to AGAIN. If I was a commercial radio programmer I'd be terrified at the prospect of my programming (produced on a budget of, let's say, 50p) to be offered in the context of some centralised service where it will be compared against BBC Radio 2 programming (produced on a budget of, let's say £20).

Commercial radio don't do 'content' particularly well. Outside the breakfast show investment in programming is low, especially at the moment given the financial crisis and the stock response of commercial broadcasters - redundancy. You'd think that podcasting would be an area where radio companies could excel, but podcasts from the UK commercial radio brands are poor compared to those from BBC radio and often eclipsed by those from TV, publishing and keen amateurs.

On other facet that makes this story interesting is it seems to have been initiated from the BBC side. While their motives are unclear, they're the only broadcaster that could possibly do this. But would they do it out of the goodness of their hearts, for free? I can't see the BBC Trust allowing that. Disgusted Licence Fee Payer of Tunbridge Wells would explode. The BBC are well placed to negotiate lower costs for bandwidth, software production and for the inevitable protracted negotiations with PRS, MCPS and record labels - but they'd have to prove that the service was capable of generating revenue to subsidise the licence fee. This either means the commercial radio industry paying the BBC for the service, or offering a slice of the revenue that it can generate as a result. Neither of which seems likely.

Commercial radio is on its arse. It's reaction to shrinking audiences and shrinking profits is to contract - to cut costs and to go back to basics. It needs a revolution in it's philosophy, it's business model and it's thinking. But I'm not sure this is it. I'm not saying it's a terrible idea - it's just not come at the right time.