Who's On Heart breaches broadcasting code, and listener trust

Do you remember the competition that Heart ran for about 6 months during their daytime shows between 10am and 4pm?  It caused a lot of controversy on some radio forums, and apparently, OFCOM also recieved a complaint about it.

The complaint from a listener to Heart's Devon station, now mostly merged with Heart Cornwall, formerly Atlantic FM, to form Heart South West.  There were three incidents that the complainant reported where the presenter, in this case Toby Anstis, host of the Mid Morning slot from 10am to 1pm across the whole Heart Network, did not make clear that the competition was across the whole Heart Network, not merely the station that the listener was listening to.

OFCOM found that the station had been in breach of Rule 2.15, which states that...

“Broadcasters must draw up rules for a broadcast competition or vote. These rules must be clear and appropriately made known. In particular, significant conditions that may affect a viewer's or listener's decision to participate must be stated at the time an invitation to participate is broadcast.”

 Now, it has to be said, this I think is something of a harsh decision, as I believe the top prize on the competition was around £50,000, or maybe it had gone up to £60,000, but either way, that would be enough motivation for any listener to want to call in.  Also, as OFCOM noted in the decision, only the person who got through to the studio was charged for the call, and others would not be.

But there are a couple of interesting points that are worth remembering here.

The first is the issue of listener trust.  Now this is something that some people in the broadcasting industry either don't understand, or forget about, or think that it doesn't matter.  Yet, listener trust is one of the most important commodities that any station can have, as it helps to build ratings and credibility, two of a radio station's results.  It's very easy to destory listener trust, and once that trust has gone, it's very difficult to get it back.

And Heart, in its very construction, is a station that actively avoids being upfront with listeners.  The fact that 35 stations have become 17 all under a single brand, with 17 hours a day of network programming on weekdays, and 20 hours a day on weekends, yet tries to say with a straight face that it prides itself on it's localness, just doesn't ring true.  A listener to Heart South West in Penzance, wouldn't feel that a station based in Exter and London, is very local to them.  After all, Exeter is 110 miles away, and London is 289 miles away.  Not exactly local, especially when compared to Pirate FM, that is based in Pool, near Redruth, which is only 15.7 miles away, and does locally originated programming for all except 3 hours on a Sunday afternoon

Heart's words and actions are not congruent, and as such, to me as a listener, it does not make me want to trust them as a radio station.

The second point I'd like to make is one that would annoy a lot of the fans of Heart on the various radio forums and sites, but is a very pertinent point.

Heart's parent company, Global Radio, have set themselves up as the big guns in the industry, and with their intended purchase of the entity formerly known as GMG being investigated by the Office of Fair Trading, this breach of the broadcasting code doesn't help matters for them, even if it doesn't hinder them.  And even if this breach is counted against them in that process, which is unlikely, it's not exactly a big minus.  But when you set yourself up as the biggest company in the industry, there will be people who will not like what you do, just as there will be people who do like what you do.

However, some of the reactions that I have seen from Heart's fans, or as I usually call them, the Heartophiles, have been definitely derogatory towards the complainant.  Some of the thoughts about who the complainant might be, are logical and believable.  After all, in creating Heart Devon, Global took 5 different breakfast shows, 4 different daytime shows and 5 different drivetime shows, and replaced them with 1 countywide breakfast show and 1 countywide drivetime show, with network daytimes.  They basically fired a lot of people and  it's not inconcievable that some of them might have an agenda against Heart.  However, it has to be said that a number of those who used to work for those stations that became Heart Devon, still have some very strong friendships with those who still work at Heart.

But it is worrying that the attitude is that the person invloved is somehow either a professional complainer, or someone at a rival station, that's a very damaging attitude to hold.  When you are working at a radio station, you are busy doing so much, that you don't have time to dissect the opposition's output, much as you'd might like to.  I find the whole idea of a rival station getting a complaint submitted to OFCOM to be totally ludicrous.  The other idea of a professional complainer, whilst being more plausible, considering the past actions of organisations like MediaWatch UK, also seems unlikely in this situation.  The professional complainers, such as MediaWatch UK, go after the BBC, or Channel 4, or Sky.  The groups that are anti-Global and anti-Heart, are rag-tag Facebook groups of individuals, many of whom don't even have the time to actively monitor Heart's output all day.

The idea that "normal listeners" don't complain is something that broadcasters have been trying to use for years to discredit anybody who did complain about their output.  It's a dangerous attitude to hold, and is very insulting to listeners, who are the most important people for any radio station.  If you don't value the feedback you get from your listeners, then why should they listen to your station?

All in all, this is small fry, this is a minor infraction.  In the NFL, you'd call this a 5 yard penalty.  It's nothing.  But the reaction of the Heartophiles online, is very disconcerting.  They're treating it, like they've given up a 15 yard penalty, a major infraction, and they've basically attacked the motivation of the complainer, without having any proof, or any eveidence, or even anything slightly circumstancial.  Rather than accept that Heart made a few mistakes, they throw some quite wild unprovable accusations, just so they can feel better.  Such behaviour is unjustified, unwarranted and does not help Heart from a public relations standpoint. 

It's a shame that these so called fans cannot just accept the fact that Heart go caught out on some minor infractions of the broadcasting code and let things be.  But any big company can be regarded as a target, as the BBC, ITV, Sky and NewsCorp have all found out.  And now Global are starting to realise that as the biggest commercial radio company, you are there to be shot at, and some people will take potshots at you, and some will hit the target.  The measure of a company is how you react and recover from those hits and do you make your product better as a result.

My thoughts on the Q1 2012 RAJARs

There are a few notable things in this new report, which was released at Midnight. 

The Cornish local radio stations, all down compared to last quarter.  Very unusual.  Usually one will be up even if the others are down.  Best performer out of the three was BBC Radio Cornwall, which was only down 2,000 in reach and 0.2% in terms of share.  The station maintained its average hours at 11.3 hrs per listener. 

Atlantic FM though, is already showing signs that the move by Global to buy it out might have been a mistake.  The announcement was made on 19th March, right towards the end of Q1.  And if these figures are anything to go by, then Atlantic's listenership might well had already started to desert by the end of the quarter.  The figures are down 5,000 on reach, average hours dropped to 5.4 and share dropped from 3.6 to 3.4%.  And this was before any of the Heart branding got added into the mix.

But surprisingly, the worst performer of the three was Pirate FM.  Down 8,000 in reach, down 0.3 hours in average hours, and down 0.8% in share.  Pirate FM did replace their evening presenter at the beginning of the quarter with an extension of their automated programming.  That maybe the reason why they're down.

In South East Cornwall, you might have expected Heart or Gold to be the beneficiaries of such a drop.  Well if Heart Devon did benefit, though it is unlikely, they lost out elsewhere in Devon.  Heart Devon saw their own audience drop 11,000 on reach, down 0.2 on average hours and down 0.1% on share.  But Gold did gain, but it might not have been entirely due to the reduction in audience in the other stations.  Gold Devon got carraige on DAB in North Devon and maybe that had as much to do with it, as anything else.  Gold gained 13,000 listeners in reach, saw their average hours increase by 4 hours, and as a result, their share more than doubled, from 1.2% to 2.6%.  I will need to pay a little more attention to Gold, to see if I can discern why their audience is growing that significantly.

You might have expected BBC Radio Devon to have picked up significantly from Heart Devon, but they did not.  In fact, they lost 22,000 listeners on reach.  However, average hours went up from 12.5 to 13.2 and as a result, share increased 0.2% on the previous quarter. 

In other news, BBC Radios Guernsey, Jersey and Cornwall continue to be the best performing of the BBC local radio stations, although Cornwall (37%) has moved into second place on that list, putting Jersey (35%) into 3rd place.  BBC Radio Norfolk is 4th on 30% reach, the only other station to achieve 30%+ in terms of reach in the BBC Local Radio stable.  Worst perfomer there is BBC London, in the ultra competitive London market only achieving a 5% reach.  Next was BBC Sussex and Surrey with 9% reach, and equal third, BBC WM and BBC Coventry and Warwickshire, both with 11% reach.

In national commercial radio, Absolute Radio is down 32,000 listeners, whilst Absolute 80s gained 29,000 and Absolute 90s gained 32,000 listeners, Classic FM gained 80,000 listeners, Talk Sport gained 36,000 listeners, Smooth Radio UK gained 2,000 listeners, Jazz FM gained 52,000 listeners and Planet Rock gained 50,000 listeners.

BBC Radio 2 gaining 293,000 listeners, and 5 Live saw an icrease of 137,000 listeners but other BBC nationals did not perform so well.  Radio 1 saw a drop of 524,000 listeners, Radio 4 saw a drop of 527,000 listeners, Radio 3 lost 195,000 listeners.  The BBC national digital stations were also a mixed bag.  Whilst 5 Live Sports Extra saw a massive 336,000 listener increase, Asian Network increased by 68,000 and 6 Music gained 11,000 listeners, on the flip side, 1Xtra lost 99,000 listeners, World Service lost 85,000 and Radio 4 Extra lost 52,000 listeners. 

Overall, it's difficult to determine any distinct pattern or trend, although national commercial radio seemed to be the greater beneficiary, with a few exceptions.  Although Heart Devon lost listeners and Gold Devon gained, the reverse was true across the networks.  Heart gained slightly across the UK, whilst Gold lost listeners.  The Breeze South West continued to lose ground, losing another 5,000 listeners, and dropping below 1% in share, whilst sister station Jack FM gained 10,000 listeners in Bristol, but they average hours went down by 2 hours.  Local commmercial radio doesn't seem to gaining much ground, if any.  Without significant improvement to the local commercial radio product, listeners will continue to desert stations.  The BBC needs to be wary that any cuts made to BBC local radio, especially the replacing of regional evening shows with an England-wide evening show, may send listeners away from the radio entirely in the evening, especially with local commercial radio moving away from live evening shows themselves.  And once they disappear, it will be hard to get them back.

Goodbye Atlantic FM...

So the last live presenter on Atlantic FM signed off today at noon.  The station formerly known as Atlantic FM, but currently known as "Heart is coming", has been playing back to back music since.

Heart Cornwall officially launches at 8am with Victoria Leigh, ex of Atlantic FM's Full Cornish Breakfast, doing the first and only live breakfast show exclusively for Cornwall on Heart.  As it currently stands, there will not be another one in the foreseeable future.  Heart Devon have the excrusiating Emma Scott.  Heart Cornwall will usually just have to put up with her on Saturday Mornings as she will host Saturday Breakfast from 8am to Noon.  Dave Luck hosts Sunday Breakfast between the same times.

Normally, Victoria Leigh will do the drivetime show exclusively for Cornwall from 4pm to 7pm Weekdays, whilst Heart Devon will have Emma Scott.

We won't get our new regular breakfast show until Tuesday morning with Matt and Caroline.  And you can bet that in the 26 hours from Monday 8am to Tuesday 10am, most of the links will be promoting the new Heart Cornwall, even on network programmes.  They have the ability to voicetrack separate links for individual transmitters if they need to, and they'll be taking full advantage of that during that 26 hour period and probably at least once per hour for the rest of the week, except of course during Victoria Leigh's shows.

So, farewell Atlantic FM.  0730 06/07/2006 - 1200 06/05/2012

And farewell as well to Heart Plymouth on the NOW Cornwall DAB multiplex.  That has been replaced already by Heart Cornwall, same output as FM.  Well at least, we're getting the right version of Heart right now, which is still more than can be said for listeners to DAB in North Devon.  I understand they are still getting the Exeter ads on their version of Heart on local DAB.

But although Heart Cornwall may be coming in the morning, I will probably be saying goodbye to it soon afterwards, as I will almost inevitably return to the better products that exist on the radio.  Pirate FM, BBC Radio Cornwall, Smooth Radio, BBC Radio 5 Live, 5 Live Sports Extra, BBC World Service, WNYC, WETA, WGBH and the many other superior choices that are available online. 

But I do have something to look forward to.  CHBN Radio, formerly known as Truro Hospital Radio, will be launching soon on FM, and I will be awaiting their launch with a lot of interest.