Mark Zenier wrote:
In article ,
D Peter Maus wrote:
Seeing-I-dawg wrote:
BBC lies in radio listening figures

http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/200...g-figures.html

BBC, in recent years, has had a problem with numbers.

Largely, because year end bonuses were tied to them.

Byford and his top execs, for turning off the Shortwave feeds to
North America pocketed bonuses equalling the savings in operating costs
realized by shutting of those SW feeds.

Despite the reality that those SW feeds, by Byford's own numbers,
captured and held millions of listeners a week. And that those
listeners, and their TSL, time spent listening, were not servable
through the highly touted FM and webserver access.

If Karmazin had been successful in buying the BBC, there would have
been bodies flying out the windows at Bush House.

They occaionally had one of those middle management types on "Write On",
(the listener feedback show, now "Over to You") and they've got a terminal
case of "New Media" disease. They think the World Service is a web site.
And the only audience that counts are "persons of influence".



Yeah, they had Byford, himself, on...and in his own words he said he
was only interested in reaching 'decision makers and opinion formers.'

Pretty much says what his real goals were.


I got a vague impression that the BBC owned a chunk of XM. Or maybe
XM slipped them some bucks under the table to kill off North America
Shortwave.


What was interesting, is that when the shortwave streams to North
America were shut off, there were no alternative outlets except FM
affiliates, which were carrying on the average less than 2 hours a week.
Most, only a handful of 5 minute summaries at the top of the hour,
overnight. The webstreams at the time were slow, and under resourced.
They could only serve a few thousand listeners worldwide at any given
time. A big breaking story, and they would crash. So with the end of
shortwave, all those listeners, some of them, like myself and most of us
here, with 20 or more hours a week in listening, were orphaned. In favor
of a few minutes a week of news. But the news feeds were directed to the
'right' listeners.

On "Write On" Byford attempted to quote the numbers that showed that
he had more listeners on the FM affiliates alone than were listening
through shortwave. His numbers didn't begin to add up based on the BBC's
own worldwide listening figures.

But then, he wasn't really interested in listeners in number, as much
as he was interested in 'the right listeners.'

His school tie, and a 6 figure bonus that year, did most of his
thinking for him.


I don't think BBC owns a piece of XM. And when XM and Sirius
launched, World Service streams were split to an all news and
information stream on Sirius, and the 'Rich Mix' that we all enjoyed, on
XM.

When shortwave broadcasts ended, the "Rich Mix" feature and
entertainment programs were moved to another BBC channel, and the web,
and both Sirius and XM became, for the most part, only news. Again, to
more desirable 'decision makers and opinion formers.'

Anyone who still believes that BBC is an impartial news source, needs
to rethink that position.