The news that the BBC is considering reversing its decision to close down the Asian Network marks the corporation’s second major U-turn on a digital radio service closure. The first was the more high-profile threat to close 6 Music.

The dithering indecisiveness is enough. But what really annoys me about these decisions is the underlying reason behind them — ratings — and the story it tells.

Lacklustre awareness

Both 6 Music and the Asian Network had relatively poor ratings before the BBC announced that the services would close. In that sense, it was easy to see why the savings-seeking BBC was lining them up for the chop.

Then something funny happened. Ratings shot through the roof. After its closure was announced, the number of 6 Music listeners doubled from 600,000 a week to 1.2 million a week. It wasn’t just a flash in the pan either. Since 6 Music was saved from the axe, ratings have remained over the 1 million mark.

The problem is that beforehand, awareness of BBC 6 Music was extremely low. Only 20 per cent of UK adults had even heard of the station. No wonder ratings are so poor if four fifths of the potential audience doesn’t even know of its existence!

Similarly, ratings for the Asian Network have increased by a third since its closure was announced. The increase in ratings has been given as the reason for the BBC’s U-turn.

Publicity vacuum hurts BBC digital radio

The problem is that the closure threat was the most publicity 6 Music and the Asian Network had ever had. The BBC isn’t usually shy of promoting its own services, but it has completely failed to sell its digital radio stations to the public at large. In fact, it has completely failed to sell digital radio full stop.

Just look at the digital radio listenership figures — figure 3.34 in this Ofcom report (PDF) (via James Cridland).

A measley 18 per cent of Radio 1 listeners listen over a digital format. The highest figure among BBC radio stations (excluding those available on digital platforms only) is 5 Live — 36 per cent. These listeners have a significant incentive to move to digital though, as otherwise 5 Live is only available on poor quality medium wave frequencies.

Meanwhile, over half of listeners to Absolute Radio listen over a digital platform. Absolute’s success in pursuing digital platforms is well-documented.

Skewed priorities

Considering that the BBC is supposed to be investing in digital radio, it is not doing a very good job of promoting it. Despite having great content on its digital services, the BBC is shy of actually promoting them.

In this department, it is being considerably outperformed by Absolute Radio, a commercial outlet that doesn’t have a chunk of license fee money set aside for pushing digital. The BBC seems to have lost all of its enthusiasim for digital, even when it is producing excellent digital services.

As James Cridland pointed out, fans following the Ashes earlier this year will not have missed a ball were they listening on 5 Live Sports Extra, as I did. Yet all over the news the following day was the fact that BBC radio listeners were deprived of the victorious moment because the shipping forecast was being broadcast on Radio 4 longwave at the time.

This provided plenty of good coverage in the shape of, “ha, that crazy old shipping forecast, eh?!” All very good. But why wasn’t the point driven home that an excellent digital service was broadcasting the cricket completely uninterrupted?

I am sure there are lots of avid cricket fans out there that rely on their longwave signal. But I have checked, and I don’t even own any equipment that can pick up longwave. I suspect if I were to go to the shops to buy a radio, I would have to make a special effort to find one that could receive longwave. Meanwhile, I could pick up a DAB radio for about £30 with no trouble whatsoever.

Where are the promos?

Why did the Radio 2 breakfast slot get a big push when Chris Evans started presenting it? The Radio 2 breakfast show is the most popular radio programme in the country, with around 10 million listeners. If there is one radio show that does not need promoting, it is this — whether it has a new presenter or not.

With radio, the BBC seems to have got its marketing priorities all wrong. Where are the big promos for stations like 6 Music, Radio 7 or the Asian Network? Why isn’t it pushing 5 Live Sports Extra harder at avid sports fans?

I’ve spotted two posts on this today. The comments at Freedom and Whisky are filled with people wanting a BBC England. I always found that request a bit puzzling, as I have mentioned before on this blog. See, for instance, this post (you need to scroll a bit until I start talking about BBC England).

I just don’t see what advantage a BBC England would have over the existing BBC. The reason there isn’t a BBC England is because in England they have regions. A lot of people complain about the whole concept of regions, but I don’t know what the problem is. Frankly, I’d love for Scotland to have BBC regions because that would save us from being subjected to tokenistic non-stories about sheep in the Outer Hebrides. Then they could provide something resembling a local news service. If they were to get rid of the BBC regions to be replaced with a BBC England, the viewers in Cornwall would have to endure stories about the local news in Newcastle and vice-versa. How would that help anyone?

I happen to believe that the BBC has the balance wrong though. With devolution, the 6 O’Clock News increasingly has too many Englandandwales-specific stories. I think a ‘Scottish Six’ (but keeping the 10 as a Britain-wide broadcast) as I have described in this post would do just nicely.

Of course, there are those who would like to separate the BBC into pieces completely, and this is where the SNP come in. Alex C at Land Of The Nearly Free has a little moan about how he as a Scot in uninterested in cricket which is why we should never see this stuff on the television. Well cricket is actually very popular in Scotland — see the post below.

If some SNP supporters were in charge of the airwaves we’d probably be subjected to 24 hour caber tossing and documentaries about fishermen. Or yet more Chewin’ the Fat spin-offs. I know I’d rather have the cricket thank you very much.

Hector Maclean commenting at Land Of The Nearly Free notes the killer reason why chopping up the BBC would be terrible.

…when it comes to world news I am not confident that a Scottish broadcaster could match the resources that a UK wide one has, and consequently it would not come up to the standards I as a viewer have grown accustomed to. I would therefore not wish to lose my access to UK wide broadcasts.

Indeed, you only have to look at Scottish TV who have trouble enough covering their own ITV region, never mind world news.

I thought that ITV’s regions were a lot more offensive anyway. Take the Border region for instance. Can anybody explain that? I can’t stand regional (or national, if you must) television anyway. Apart from providing a local news service (which is fair enough, especially when we’ve got devolution), all that BBC Scotland has brought us, as far as I can tell, is River City, and the most overrated ‘comedy’ show known to man, Chewin’ the Fat. As for Scottish TV… well, the sooner it’s swalled up by ITV plc, the better.

Christine Grahame, a South of Scotland MSP, submitted a motion entitled “It’s Simply Not Cricket” which “lamented the overwhelming UK-wide coverage of a sport which is only of marginal interest in Scotland”.

Petty, untrue nonsense. Who did she think she would impress by doing this? No doubt the sort of person who thinks you must be English if you don’t agree with the SNP (so, sadly, it’ll win her quite a few votes).

Maybe Christine Grahame and others like her could take a few lessons in the culture of the country she supposedly loves so much. There are more cricket clubs per capita in Scotland than there are in England. There are more cricket clubs in the lowlands than there are rugby clubs in the whole of Scotland.

Update: Cricket has also been played in Scotland longer than football.