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BBC Radio 5 Live’s new marketing campaign

Posted on Saturday, March 26th, 2011 at 1:19pm. #

This is really neat: a promo for BBC Radio 5 Live which was filmed during the day, then aired during evening BBC television. It covers the latest news, and excellently communicates that the station’s all about live news during the weekdays – and a good personality, too.

The advertising agency man explains more on the BBC website.

I really, really, like these promos: because it gets over clearly and succinctly what 5 Live is all about, and the vibrancy that live radio can produce.

If I had only one criticism, it would be that the old-fashioned AM frequencies are given primary billing on the end slide. In Q1 2010, AM listening accounted for only 55% of Radio 5 Live’s listening, a figure that should have decreased since as more make the switch away from it. AM is difficult to tune in to, and sounds fairly ropey in many areas of the country. If it were me, the end slide should read ‘digital radio | 909 & 693am’ – reinforcing the word ‘radio’, and placing digital at the front, as it is for many of 5 Live’s listeners already.

7 comments

Dan
commenting at March 26th, 2011 at 6:10pm

Didn’t they ban any mention of the AM service on air for a good few years until recently? I believe this caused a bit of confusion as people were then not aware of the AM service existing at all, hence them now mentioning it more (although the promotion of digital still far outweighs this).

Terry Purvis
commenting at March 27th, 2011 at 12:59pm

There is one point here that needs correcting for clarity, namely:

“AM listening accounted for only 55% of Radio 5 Live’s listening”

As AM still accounts the majority of listening to Radio 5 Live, I think this should have been written as:

“AM listening still accounts 55% of Radio 5 Live’s listening”

The use of the word “only” should be used to describe the minority method, in my view.

Terry Purvis
commenting at March 27th, 2011 at 1:00pm

I left “for” out of two crucial places, sorry about that – it’s Sunday . . . .

James Cridland
commenting at March 27th, 2011 at 1:26pm

I used the word deliberately, Terry, to point out that analogue listening for 5 Live is much lower than any other BBC network. It does, of course, still account for a slim majority of listening – though you should also note that 9% of listeners have no idea what platform they’re listening to, and it’s possible that 5% of those are listening to a digital platform.

Mark
commenting at March 27th, 2011 at 5:31pm

I suggest that most of that 55% listening is done in cars as the vast majority of people don’t have in-car DAB.

That figure should reduce fairly rapidly as DAB is fitted in new vehicles as standard. All new Fords will have in-car DAB by the end of 2012 and other manufacturers will probably work to a similar timetable, to keep up with Ford.

James Cridland
commenting at March 27th, 2011 at 6:10pm

Hi, Mark – you’d be wrong.

19.3% of radio is listened-to in the car (nowhere near 55%). 5 Live may be higher, but I’ve no evidence to show it would be nearly three times the average.

Some digital radio observations « doctorvee
commenting at April 4th, 2011 at 12:00pm

[...] Contrast this with the recent Radio 5 Live campaign that treats digital as an afterthought. [...]

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