Measurement and engagement important for ABC Radio: Kate Dundas

“It matters intensely to us that as many Australians as possible find something of value in our services.”

 

Because Australians pay for the ABC through their taxes, ABC Director of Radio Kate Dundas says it is important for the national broadcaster to be able to measure and articulate its value.

In her presentation to the Australian Broadcasting Summit she looked at various ways the ABC measures its effectiveness, from ratings to the development of Australian culture.

“A good example of building public culture is ABC Radio’s commitment to supporting a robust vibrant music industry, from recording classical music concerts to championing home grown independent music through triple j.”   triple j’s One Night Stand concert at Tumby Bay is an example of its commitment (pictured below).

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Reach, quality, value, trust and impact are all measures that are important to the ABC. “With big broad aims we need big broad ways of measurement.” In the past all ABC Radio realy had to go on were reach and share figures, but now the national broadcaster asks its audience to do one or all of the following:

    • Talkback
    • SMS
    • Comment on discussion boards
    • Add community events to ABC Radio website diaries
    • Enter competitions
    • Subscribe to RSS feeds and newsletters
    • Download podcasts
    • Download apps
    • Follow on twitter and retweet ABC content
    • Become a facebook friend
    • Bookmark ABC YouTube channels
    • Upload photos
    • Tip off stories
    • Share content with friends, make mashups
    • Attend events
    • Buy merchandise

ABC Radio has 4.4 million listeners in the 5 capital cities each week and about 39% of the population outside the capital cities listen to ABC Radio. ABC online sites showed 19% growth in monthly visitors in the past year, up to about 3 million people.

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The Unearthed website is currently hosting 90,000 original music tracks and there were 400,000 downloads last year and 1 million streams.

Across its many facebook pages, the ABC has collected well over 700,000 friends, up 39% from the previous year. Although an ABC TV program website was hacked this week, no personal information stored by any ABC Radio sites appears to have been stolen.

Mobile phone apps “put radios back in peoples pockets,” and ABC Radio is taking advantage of that by launching three radio apps in the past 2 years. There have been nearly 400,000 downloads of the ABC Radio app and the Unearthed app has nearly 900,000 downloads.

“We think online mobile and apps are really important to younger demographics… we are investing 15% of ABC Radio’s budget to online and mobile as a strategy for the long term.”

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Dundas says she applies the same standards of quality control to apps, audio streams and websites as she does to transmission faults and dead air because quality control matters and is also another measure of success.

On another measurement area, trust, Dundas says trust in media has declined overall “and the News of the World phone hacking and Jimmy Saville scandals in the UK have not helped in that regard.” Despite the generally low level of trust for news media, the most recent Trust in Media survey showed that 70% of Australians place trust in ABC Radio News and Current Affairs.

The same survey found 49% of listeners trust ABC Radio talkback, while 23% find commercial radio credible.

In a time of fragmenting audiences “trust in our services and a perception that what we do is of value are key measures for us,” said Dundas. A recent Newspoll appreciation survey found that 86% of Australians believe the ABC provides a valuable service for the community.

ABC Open gives a good sense of Australia outside the capital cities and events such as the Hottest 100 build “deep audience engagement.” Triple j’s Hottest 100 “has taken” off since the network added the ability to vote online. This year 15 million votes were cast. “It is a demonstration on a large scale of how to create an event using online and broadcast… Live parties were shown on an interactive web site and Instagram photo uploads increased hugely this year.”

There were 41 Australian acts in the hottest 100 this year, showing that ABC Radio has “a good record for breaking and supporting new talent.”

While listening in youth demographics is declining around the world triple j has bucked that trend. Dundas believes the reason for this is “the depth and breadth of engagement across so many platforms and media” and that young people appreciate that there is something “real and trustworthy” in the brand.

 

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