Happy Saturday, everyone.
Hope you all came through the storm without any real damage. We had one garden chair take flight — enough drama to make the Hightae FB page, at least.
It’s been an intense week, with everything moving up a gear.The petition is now just over 13,500 signatures, and more politicians are getting involved. A number of face-to-face meetings are now arranged. Several well-kent faces have signed and shared the petition too.
There have also been strong letters from the Musicians’ Union and the SMIA — well worth reading if you haven’t already.
And Constant Follower has written a wonderful, heartfelt piece from a touring musician’s point of view that really gets to the core of the issue.
The anger and confusion many of us felt at the start has now settled into something more solid. If the decision-makers at BBC Scotland didn’t realise how loved the Iain Anderson Show was, they certainly do now. I’ve posted a slideshow of comments on my FB page that makes that clear.
On Friday, BBC Radio Scotland released a formal statement confirming the changes. Their wording has shifted from “easy listening” to “eclectic mix”, and they’ve also announced a second Mixtape slot for Roddy Hart late on Sunday nights.
One key claim they’ve made is that late-night broadcasting accounts for just 2.5% of listeners. It’s difficult to say anything meaningful about that until we see the data behind it — especially considering Iain’s programme takes up less than 2.3% of Radio Scotland’s 164 weekly hours.
I’ve requested the underlying figures under the Freedom of Information Act, and since they’ve quoted data publicly, they are obliged to release it. They’ve given me a response date of 11th December. As a layman, I’ll need help analysing whatever comes back, but it will be interesting.
COMMENT ON BBC RADIO SCOTLAND PRESS RELEASE
BBC Radio Scotland keeps referring to “audience research data” to justify these changes — but at this stage, we’ve no idea what that actually means, because they haven’t explained it.
So here’s a bit of my own non-scientific, real-world audience research, taken straight from BBC Radio Scotland’s own Facebook page:
Their announcement post has now reached 125 comments.
From what I can see, 97% of those comments are against the changes.
By my old 4th-year maths, that’s a pretty clear message.
So if they’re looking for audience feedback, it’s sitting right there — on their own FB page.So that’s where we are on Saturday 29th November.
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