August 2015
Multichannel and Multimedia Usage in the Digital Age
Takanobu Tanaka
It has been 90 years since the radio broadcasting commenced in Japan. Radio is now dubbed “old media” and is faced with a major challenge in how to curb the decreasing listenership. This tendency is not unique to Japan. Many countries in Europe share the same issue as the public have more and more options including television, videos, the Internet, and social media. Against this backdrop, however, the BBC, the public broadcaster of the United Kingdom, marked the record high number of radio listeners in FY 2014. The BBC’s radio programmes also boasts the weekly reach of 67% (that of NHK is approx.20%).
How does the BBC Radio manage to maintain such high reach? One of the important keys is its multichannel strategy. The BBC has ten nationwide radio channels. The Radio 1 focuses on rock and other genres of music, targeting young listeners aged 15 through 29. The oldest Radio 4 upholds tradition with mixed programming that takes into consideration the balance of news, educational, and entertainment programmes. There are also channels dedicated to classic music, sports, Asian immigrants, etc. Thus, each channel has a clear target-listener demographic and strives to offer distinctive broadcasts in order to provide services to “everyone across the UK.” The other important key of the BBC’s radio strategy is multimedia use. For example, targeting the youths, Radio 1 puts up a slogan of “Listen, Watch, Share” and develops various new services such as streaming of video content derived from radio programs on YouTube or social media pages where listeners enjoy sharing information and impressions of the content. The idea behind these efforts is to closely communicate with young people through diversified measures. Helen Boaden, Director of BBC Radio, says that since the radio-listening time is on a downward trend, it is important to utilise online and social media services to attract young audience to the BBC brand.