Answered by Adrian Van Klaveren
I think there clearly is a real change taking place in how audiences actually consume news- that people are increasingly moving away from the idea that you sit down with the news at a set time and watch... Show more »I think there clearly is a real change taking place in how audiences actually consume news- that people are increasingly moving away from the idea that you sit down with the news at a set time and watch it on TV at a particular moment, or you listen to the radio at a particular time, that now actually people get their news wherever and whenever they want it, in lots of different forms.
So that means for those of us who produce news, what we’re actually looking to do is think how we can make our content just much more relevant to different audience groups and giving people the ability to find the particular things they are interested in, to alert them about things as they actually happen- that they don’t have to wait till the end of the day to find out about them. But also to make it much easier to find a lot of the background and analysis that we do- where in the past, that was kind of done once it was available in one place but if you missed it- you missed it. So in the future, people can get to that much more.
So those are big challenges because lots of other people can do parts of all that, but what an organisation like the BBC can do, is it can actually do everything from a very fast speedy response, and alert to a story through the context and analysis, and be a platform for debate and discussion and help people get involved. And we are very well placed because we are across television radio and the web and because we’ve got large audiences we are able to offer all those different things to people.
Shrikala's follow up: What strategies do you think the traditional media should adopt in order to survive?
I think for the traditional media, the key thing is “What promise are we giving to our audiences?” – I think what people are still looking for is a place where they feel they can get information which they believe to be as accurate as is humanly possible, they get that information as fast as possible and its done in a spirit of fairness as well. That there is a place for information and news and analysis which is done in that kind of way- and the traditional broadcast media are very well placed to be able to continue to provide that, and if you can do that in a way which is easily accessible and which is engaging and which is available across a whole range of platforms, you’ve got something there which I think, in terms of how people live their lives and in terms of how society works as well, is of real value for the future and which there will continue to be an audience for.
Shrikala: how will broadcast media, which you have to pay for, compete with online media, which of course, is all free?
Yes, of course that’s true and as things stand, the BBC is very aware of this and that people don’t have a choice- if they want a television set they have to buy a license- so in a sense, we have got that luxury of that funding.
Clearly, cost has a part in this, in terms of what people will consume. But I still think that there are a lot of choices that people will be able to make and a lot of diversity in terms of the types of content that they can actually pick up and I think offering people the ability to get a service which is saying actually this news is important, we’re doing it accurately and fairly and we’re doing a range of stories- I think there is a value in that and that there will be people who are willing to see money being spent on that, whether that’s coming directly from them through a license fee or whatever, then I think that’s got a place in the future.
Shrikala: but free newsletters can be used to get news on the internet….
Well yep, that will happen and that’s what will place… whether you’re talking about what you’ll do online or whether you’re talking about newspapers that are given away free and so on …there is a place for that, but a lot of what that is doing is not the expensive end of journalism- of actually being able to find things out, to research them thoroughly. And with the amount being able to be spent and putting it together, I think it’s fulfilling a different set of needs really, it’s a completely legitimate set of needs, but I think there is a value in terms of saying “Actually, tell me something I didn’t know before about what is going on in the world and tell me that in a way that I find interesting, surprising and accessible”.
Shrikala: so content should be interesting….
Absolutely, I mean one of the most important jobs that we’ve got is trying to find ways of making the important things interesting and that’s one of the key things that each day we are having to sit down and think about – this is important but how do we make people understand why it is important, how it matters? If you are trying to explain the credit crunch and losses at a bank or whatever…. Why does this matter to people? Why should they be concerned about it? And that’s what we’ve always got to be working on.
Shrikala: So to conclude, you believe that all the medias can work together.
I think that’s right. I think one of the great advantages of this age is that people do have much more choice and that you can pick up different things according to your particular needs and your particular sets of information that you are trying to acquire at that time, and there are many different ways of doing that. And I think that’s the great opening up and it’s to the benefit of audiences that they do have that choice as opposed- if you were looking back 30 years- to a set number of newspapers, very few television news bulletins and very few radio programmes.
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