UK Edition
BBC admits defeat in battle for radio audiences as it focuses on challenge from podcasts and Spotify
The BBC is to give up competing with commercial radio stations for audiences to focus on the threat to its future from music on Spotify and podcasts via Apple.
James Purnell, the BBC’s director of radio, will signal the shift this week by declaring he does not “care” about audience share or beating commercial stations in the battle for listeners.
In a speech seen by The Telegraph, Mr Purnell will say that the BBC need to change quickly and shift spending away from its traditional broadcast programming to serve younger and more diverse audiences better.
“We need to change faster than we have in the last few years,” the former Labour cabinet minister will say. “We’ll need to change where we allocate our money. We’ll need to change the kind of content we offer. “
BBC radio has been losing ground to commercial broadcasters such as Global, company behind the phone-in station LBC which uses high-profile politicians such as as Nigel Farage and Sadiq Khan as presenters.
TalkSport, part of the Wireless Group now owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK, has been buying football coverage rights.
The explosion of capacity delivered by DAB and the internet have allowed rivals to challenge Radio 4 and Radio 5 Live.
Commercial radio is now reaching a bigger share of the population than the BBC according to industry figures known as the RAJARs.
Mr Purnell will dismiss the shift as irrelevant to the BBC’s mission. He will say: “I don’t care about share. I don’t care about beating Global, Bauer or Wireless in the RAJARs. We care about the future of British audio.”
Mr Purnell will suggest that the challenge to BBC radio from technology giants as not as urgent as the threat to British television from Netflix and others, where he “can see a world emerging in which children can only choose American content”.
However young people already spend more time listening to Spotify than the whole of BBC radio.
Mr Purnell will argue that current Ofcom regulation that impose coverage quotas in areas such as news and religious affairs are preventing it from responding quickly enough.
He will say: “We need to match our spending to our audience. That’s been hard in the tramlines of our radio stations. Had we wanted to make an audio drama for young black audiences, where would we have played it?
“Fortunately the technology is solving that problem. In future, we can play it on our radio app. Our money can follow the audience.”
Mr Purnell will speak as concern rises across the BBC about the impact of the internet on its traditional dominance of broadcasting.
Figures compiled by industry analysts Enders show that while it accounts for nearly a third of traditional viewing, in the on-demand world the iPlayer has only an 8pc share.
The Corporation is in talks with ITV and Channel 4 about whether they can join forces to create a new subscription streaming service to challenge Netflix, which has built a strong position partly by offering box sets of old BBC programmes. Mr Purnell will say the BBC is “working hard to reverse that position”.