BBC Trust

Introduction

The Audience Councils are advisory bodies of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the BBC. There are four Audience Councils – for England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

The Audience Councils have played an important role in providing the Trust with insight on the views, needs and interests of audiences in their respective nations, and on how well the BBC is serving these audiences and delivering its public purposes.

The Councils have brought the views and perspectives of local audiences to bear on the work of the Trust in a number of ways:

• They have assessed how well the BBC is performing for audiences in their nation, most notably through an annual report to the Trust. These reports are published.
• They provide input into the Trust decision-making process, for instance in reviews of services or policies,or decisions about major changes to services.
• They identify emerging issues of importance to local audiences which inform the Trust’s annual workplan.

Audience Council members are appointed by the BBC Trust, as independent volunteers from outside the BBC. Each Council is chaired by the Trust member for the relevant nation.

The Councils remain in place until April 2017, when the Trust hands over its responsibilities to Ofcom and a new BBC Board.

Foreword by National Trustee

This Report marks an end and a new beginning. On April 2nd 2017 the BBC Trust will be replaced by a new Unitary Board. The Trust's regulatory function moves to Ofcom and governance will sit with the new Board. In Wales the work of the Audience Council, in its current form, will end. The new Charter and Agreement leaves the structure of a successor body to the new Board. I would like to call on that new Board to move rapidly to establish a new Wales structure for the BBC that will challenge the Executive and speak on behalf of the nation's broadcasting needs and aspirations. Wales needs a strong voice in a rapidly changing future and it needs to establish it as soon as possible.

The Trust and Audiences Councils, over a ten year period, have promoted accurate reporting of devolved matters on network News and Current Affairs. Audience Council Wales is aware of the importance of the 6 30 Welsh news in the nation's conversation with itself and notes with satisfaction the 6 30's share of available viewers. Similarly BBC Wales programming does well on BBC1 including its important sports coverage. The Council is delighted to see the structure of the new Headquarters of BBC Wales emerging in Central Square Cardiff, contributing and indeed leading the regeneration of the area. It is also proud of the good name of the Orchestra, of its contribution in Wales, to the Proms and to Radio 3 and its recent visit to Patagonia. But it is also aware of a real deficit in the portrayal of Wales in Drama and Comedy, both on Network and nationally. Others, including the IWA and the National Assembly, have made this point as well as the Council. I therefore welcome the announcement  from the Director General this February that up to £8.5 m of additional money is to be allocated to English language programming from Wales and about Wales.  I look forward to seeing that spend on our screens and mobiles.  I know that BBC Wales will seize the opportunity with enthusiasm and with huge talent.

The Council has monitored the contribution of BBC Wales to S4C and is delighted to see Pobl y Cwm in very good health and a re-vamped Newyddion gaining a strong audience. Radio Cymru and Radio Wales are hugely valued and important but struggle against the overwhelming affection for Radio 2 in Wales and changing listening patterns. Radio Cymru has experimented with a new digital offering (Mwy) and with a dedicated and very successful news and magazine digital form (Cymru Fyw). These experiments demonstrate the seriousness of BBC Wales in trying to reach the audience in a new way.

I want to thank my colleagues on the Audience Council for their passion for and commitment to the audience's needs.  They have been a truly dedicated group. I hope the new non-executive Director for Wales will be able to avail herself or himself of a group which has a such a broad range of communities of interest. As Chairman and on behalf of the Council I thank our Wales Chief Adviser Karl Davies and our Council Secretary and Governance Coordinator, Sion Brynach for the quality of their advice and their outstanding effectiveness in supporting the Council's work. And the BBC Wales Executive, in particular Rhodri Talfan Davies, for their willingness to share information and provide answers.

It has been a privilege to serve as the Chair of the Audience Council and as a Trustee. I thank my fellow Trust members, and Chairman, Rona, for their support for the BBC in Wales and more generally for the devolved nations. The new Charter and Agreement makes more references to the needs of the Nations than any previous Charter. We wish the new Unitary Board and the new Wales structure all success in the implementation of that Charter over the next ten years. As always, there is a job to be done.

Elan Closs Stephens

National Trustee and Chair Audience Council Wales

Audience Council activity April 2016-January 2017

This year the Council’s focussed on opportunities to advise the Trust on developments in the BBC Charter discussions and on the Trust’s service review of the BBC’s nations news and radio stations.

BBC progress towards meeting ACW 2016 audience priorities

In its Annual Review 2015-16, the Council identified the following audience priorities for the year ahead. This section reviews progress towards these to date.

• That BBC Cymru Wales be provided with the resources to increase the range of genres and hours of English language television programming for Wales. We note that the National Assembly Communities Committee in March 2016 recommended providing an additional £30 million to BBC Cymru Wales’ budget for the services it provides Wales.
• That the portrayal of Wales in the BBC’s network TV drama be significantly improved as soon as possible to address the current practical invisibility of Wales in this genre.
• That the portrayal of Wales in BBC network TV comedy be significantly improved as soon as possible to address the current practical invisibility of Wales in this genre.
• The Council has drawn the Trust’s attention to the Priority relating to the adequate portrayal of the diversity of the UK, and equality of gender portrayal, for a number of years. It asks that the Trust endeavour to take urgent action to ensure that the BBC addresses this and the BBC’s lower performance amongst Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) and less well off (C2DE) audiences. It also considers that a strategy for securing the audiences of the future by drawing young audiences to the BBC’s services is urgently required.
• That a strategy be drawn up for collaborative working by the BBC with diverse communities, building partnerships at a local as well as national and UK level during the period of the next Royal Charter.
• That including more Nations opt-out programming in the BBC network television schedules be investigated to give more exposure to the highly valued TV programming produced in each of the UK’s nations and to replace repeat programming currently shown in much of the daytime schedule. This would help both in terms of better reflecting the UK’s diverse communities and ensuring better portrayal of the UK’s four constituent nations.
• Whilst recognising improvements in the BBC’s network news and current affairs programming regarding signposting the relevance of stories to the nations of the UK, that the services should ensure a far better reflection of the news of Wales and the other devolved nations of the UK in its flagship services.
• That BBC Cymru Wales consider ways of filling the gaps in the awareness of its radio, TV and online services amongst potential audience members, recognising that audience members require better signposting and advertising of BBC material which would interest them.
• That the long running distribution problems relating to the lack of availability of BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio Wales on DAB (raised by the Council on a number of previous occasions), and the patchy availability of these services on FM, be resolved as a matter of urgency. The BBC should also do all within its power to ameliorate the further deprivation experienced by those numerous sections of the audience in Wales who only have access to an inadequate internet service.
• That a robust and comprehensive means of measuring the performance of the BBC’s offering on social media platforms be designed in order to make the process of measuring its performance meaningful.

In considering the BBC’s response to these priorities, the Council makes the following points: 

• that the BBC Director-General announced in February that there would be an additional £8.5m per annum of new funding for BBC Cymru Wales English language television for Wales by 2019/20, to be invested in a range of genres. He added that the aim was that at least half this programming should be broadcast on the BBC’s network channels, thus improving portrayal of Wales on BBC network. He also announced his plans to launch a new BBC Wales iPlayer channel, providing “ a new home for Welsh programming.” The Council welcomes this announcement and hopes that this is the beginning of a real renaissance in television made in Wales for Wales.
• it welcomes the commitment in the new Charter to improving the portrayal of Wales on the BBC’s network news and in other genres, but it notes that such commitments have been made in the past with little real change and so considers that there should be proper oversight of this within the new governance arrangements.
• it welcomes the BBC’s recently published Diversity Strategy as well as the examples of collaborative working such as the BBC’s “Tower project” in 2016. (This was a BBC radio and online events, programmes and social media activity aimed at people who live in and around the tower blocks in Butetown, Cardiff.). The Council expects to see measurable outcomes in terms of the portrayal of diverse sections of the population
• it welcomes the progress which continues to be made on the roll-out of DAB coverage and encourages the BBC and Ofcom to continue to address this with all possible haste.
• it recognises the challenges in measuring digital impact of BBC content and material on third-party sites but encourages the BBC to continue its efforts in this regard as well as exploring opportunities to reach new and existing audiences through social media.

Performance of the BBC in Wales in 2016

BBC Cymru Wales output

The Council welcomed the continued success of BBC Cymru Wales’ national output on TV, radio and on-line, and observed that appreciation of BBC Wales TV content continues to be higher than the BBC’s network TV content and that it gains a higher audience share.

The Council is concerned, however, that on the same basis, weekly reach of BBC Wales TV programmes on BBC One and BBC Two has reduced from 34% in 2011 to 30% in 2016. We understand that this is due to there being a narrower range of programmes and fewer showings of them, This has been countered by  the introduction of some high impact programming ‘seasons’ and programme scheduling designed to maximise impact.

The Council considers that this decrease supports its view that an increase in funding for English language TV programmes made in Wales for audiences in Wales is long overdue. We endorse the National Assembly for Wales’ assertion that investment in this area of BBC Wales’ activity should be of the order of at least an additional £30m.

Despite some reduction in audience reach of Radio Cymru and Radio Wales in Wales, , the Council considers the performance of both stations to have been largely stable and in-line with the overall reduction in all BBC Radio listening. Having met the Editors of both stations regularly, the Council is supportive of their actions.

The Council congratulates Radio Cymru on the 40th anniversary of its establishment (with Radio Wales due to celebrate the same anniversary at the end of 2018). It believes that generations of Welsh speakers have been informed, educated and entertained by the station. Council members look forward to hearing about the outcome of the RC Mwy pilot which saw alternative Radio Cymru output offered each morning for a month both on-line and in the south-east Wales on DAB. This gave the BBC an opportunity to test the technology as well as providing a platform for new presenting talent.

The Council has heard audience concerns about the extensive schedule changes on Radio Wales in recent years as more speech content has been included in daytime. There is an audience perception that the station was no longer reflecting their communities and connecting with them in the way it once didand the Council considers that reconnecting with those communities to be a priority for the station.

The Council considers that BBC Wales’ online services have also had a successful year with the English language services having maintained performance at just under 4 million unique browsers each week, and Cymru Fyw, the Welsh language on-line service and app, also having grown usage with unique browsers now at over 60,000 each week up from 10,000 three years ago. It notes that two-thirds of Cmyru Fyw’s audience are under 45 years old. The success of S4C’s content on the BBC iPlayer has also continued with over 120,000 unique browsers each week.

The BBC’s network output in Wales on radio, TV and on-line

The Council notes that public approval of the BBC and the perception of the BBC’s value for money in Wales are both close to the UK average– respectively at 6.9 and 6.0 – and considerably better than perceptions in Scotland and Northern Ireland (Source: BBC Accountability and Reputation Tracker, all adults 16+, Q3 2016).

Welsh audience perceptions of all BBC TV and all BBC radio in Wales have remained largely stable but there has been some reduction in listening in line with the downward trend in total radio listening across the UK.

The Council is aware that people are increasingly accessing BBC content via third-party sites, such as social media, and that it is not currently possible to measure usage through these sites. With recent Ofcom reports suggesting that 99% of 16-24 year olds access social media in any given week and spend some significant time on it, this is an important issue for the BBC.

The BBC in Wales 2007-2017

As the current BBC Charter ends in 2017 the Audience Council Wales looks back over a decade during which it reached out to listen to members of the audience from diverse parts of Welsh society in all parts of the country.  During that time there were several themes that recurred in the comments which Council heard.  The lack of access to services for all parts of the audience was a constant issue and ACW welcomed the early intervention of the Trust in launching Freesat.  It also was pleased to see improved access to Radio Wales on FM and both Radio Cymru and Radio Wales on DAB and hopes to see continuing improvements here under the next Charter. 

The Council has hear that the substantial amount of BBC Network production in Wales, comprising mainly drama at the purpose built Roath Lock studios, is something in which people in all parts of Wales take great pride.  Audiences have taken great delight in seeing contemporary Wales portrayed in series such as Torchwood and Hinterland and the ACW hopes that much greater progress can be made in the future in depicting Welsh life on the BBC Network services than has been the case during the period of the last Charter.

Audiences concern about the future of S4C and its services have been a constant theme of the decade and the Council has been particularly pleased to see the good working relationship that has existed between BBC Wales and S4C, and between the Trust and the S4C Authority, during the period.  It is reassuring to see that the news service Newyddion, and the daily soap, Pobol y Cwm, both BBC produced, continue to be mainstays of the channel’s schedule following their creative renewal recently. The Council was particularly pleased to hear of audiences appreciation of Y Gwyll/Hinterland which was the result of the cooperation of S4C, BBC Wales and BBC Network TV. The success of the BBC Wales news app, Cymru Fyw, with a younger audience has in Council’s view been a significant enhancement of the service to audiences in the Welsh language.

Moving to the new Broadcast Centre in Cardiff Central Square in 2019 offers opportunities for creative renewal for BBC Cymru Wales and for an enhanced relationship with audiences.

Future priorities for the BBC Board

As well as the issues identified earlier in this report, the Council has identified the three points below as areas for priority action by the new BBC Board:

The  range and volume of English language TV programmes made in Wales for Wales has been an area of concern for the Council for some time. We believe that it must be addressed as a priority. The Council welcomes the commitments made by the BBC Director General to make additional investment in this area, but, it considers that this funding commitment must mean a real and additional investment.

Portrayal – the Council considers it central to public service broadcasting that all those who pay the licence fee should see themselves portrayed in the BBC’s output – this includes gender, national, ethnic, sexual orientation, disability and  age identities. This is crucial across the whole range of genres but in particular in the context of the BBC’s network news, drama and comedy.

Promotion and distribution – the Council remains concerned at the substantial savings implemented by the BBC which has had an impact on the Corporation’s support functions such as marketing and promotion. This is a matter which has been raised more and more frequently at the Council’s audience outreach events during recent years. Since they pay for the BBC’s output and services, it is crucial for audiences to know about them.

Distribution remains a further area of concern both in relation to broadcast services such as the availability of Radio Cymru and Radio Wales on DAB, and Radio Wales on FM,  but also the cost and availability of  broadband.

Audience accountability: The Council believes that the BBC must continue to engage meaningfully with its audiences across the UK.

It believes that technology can be one way to reach audiences and invite their response (and it would welcome a new emphasis on digital and social media as an additional means of engagement), but that this is no universal panacea. We also recognise that this could be a way of bringing items of interest to the attention of individual members of the audience.

However, the Council is concerned that it could soon be compulsory to login to myBBC to be able to access the BBC’s services, as this could be interpreted as a first step towards the BBC becoming a ‘subscription service’.

The Council considers it vital that consideration is given to reaching seldom heard audiences, who find themselves peripheralised from the BBC, both geographically and technologically. As well as gathering comments and responses at first hand from audience members, the Council’s audience outreach activity has also been a means for audiences to feel a direct and close link with the BBC in their communities, which has also been of great value during the past decade.

The Council considers that one of its key successes has been to identify emerging issues from the audience which can be explored in more formalised audience research. This was the case in 2008 when the Trust explored accuracy and impartiality of BBC network news’ coverage of issues relating to the devolved nations. We have also identified issues such as the paucity of DAB coverage of Radio Wales and Radio Cymru, and the lack of portrayal of Wales on television in this way.

The Council has sought insight by carrying out up to 18 audience outreach events each year across Wales with audiences from different socio-economic groups. The Council believes that it would be a retrograde step if this work did not continue in some form. It also strongly believes that there should be an advisory body specifically to represent the BBC’s audience in Wales, as there has been since 1952.