[Swprograms] Fwd: "Reasons for the BBCWS Decision: 2001"

["Richard Cuff" <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx>]

I posted the message below to the swprograms group on May 18, 2001;
the analysis done then appears to drive decisions even today in 2006.

Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA

---------- Forwarded message ----------

I did a bit of browsing around the 1999/2000 annual report published at the
BBCWS website.

Some interesting items for reflection:

1.  Audience size:  The Americas average weekly audience was 9 million,
versus 70 million for the Asia / Pacific region, and 47 million for Africa
and the Middle East.

2.  Shortwave audibility was markedly lower in the Americas than elsewhere -
with broadcasts "63% audible" in the Americas, and the next lowest number of
"79%" for Asia/Pacific.  This is the percentage "audibility" of the best
frequency available at the time

3.  The BBC created a series of demographic classifications to characterize
target listeners; North American target listeners  would be in a category
called "Cosmopolitans".  The other two categories, "Aspirants" and
"Information poor", would likely not apply here.  It appears that 14% of
"Cosmopolitans" in New York, Boston, and Washington listen to the BBC a
minimum of once per week.

Put these together, and if resources were tight, it would be obvious that
the first place to scale back would be North America if one had to scale
back anywhere.  Of course, as we've said here already, it appears the survey
approach isn't sound.

Why, you ask?  1) we aren't listening, 2) we "can't hear" -- audible quality
is clearly considered subpar here.

The key section of the report is
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/us/annual_report/bbcar_review_perfor.shtml
.

This is the mindset we'll likely have to combat as we campaign for a
reversal of the decision.

Richard

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