Research – Have You Heard The News- The Year In Review

December 13, 2017Simon Nunn No Comments

Justification

Ever since the Marry Whitehouse experiment there hasn’t really been any satirical comedy based around politics for young people with this being placed instead on Radio 4 which can be viewed as a natural place due to its spoken word content, however, the audience is drastically different which is proven in the blog post here, meaning that there is not really a place for young people’s comedy on any BBC Radio Network. Yet at the same time as this, there is more and more political engagement in young people as proven by the voting statistics in the most recent general election where 67% voted and in the European referendum where 64% voted and as a result had a massive effect on the outcome of both. (Financial Times, 2017) (The Independent,2016)

Furthermore, more than ever young people are seeing political news and content shared on Facebook with millions being spent on social media advertising in the recent election by political parties (Financial Times, 2017). Ultimately this means that young people are engaged in politics and as a result, relevant political comedy, such as Spotify launching their podcast called We need to talk about.

At the same time as this Radio 1 is now aiming to be more podcast based than it has been previously under this new commissioning brief that has been established (here) and the one that we intend to fulfil through this project. However in the wider context, this is not unexpected as Radio 1 has been described as competing against the likes of Minecraft and Netflix and as a result, needs to adapt itself to be more of an on-demand service so that it can provide the content that a listener wants and when they want and the importance of a truly multiplatform station through the likes of Youtube and Facebook (Guardian, 2016)

Ben Cooper the controller of Radio 1 has previously stated the importance of Radio 1’s content being built for phones and listeners enjoying it on the move and I believe that our programme Have You Heard The News A Year In Review is suitable to fulfil this. (Guardian,2017)

This is shown within their strategy of Listen Watch Share, which means that they encourage listeners to initial listen to a programme then watch the videos or other supporting content from it on Twitter or Facebook and then share this via the same medium to encourage more people to listen to the original programme. Ultimately this to build up a multiplatform environment for Radio 1 to exist in rather being solely one platform.

Overall I believe that this justifies why we have the potential to launch a new political based podcast on Radio 1 as there is nothing like this out for young people bar commercial alternatives and the BBC should be leading the way in outputting new and experimental comedy and content which I believe Have You Heard The News The Year in Review is.

https://www.ft.com/content/6734cdde-550b-11e7-9fed-c19e2700005f

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eu-referendum-brexit-turnout-young-voters-youth-vote-double-a7129181.html

https://www.ft.com/content/d1c854f0-4cea-11e7-a3f4-c742b9791d43

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/sep/19/bbc-radio-1-aims-to-be-netflix-of-music-radio-with-phone-first-strategy

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/03/ben-cooper-radio-1-up-against-minecraft-young-audiences

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04x2k75

November 15, 2017Simon Nunn No Comments

Budget

Budget

It is vital that if we were doing this project for real that we create a budget for the series of programmes or for one-off programmes, in our case this will be for the ‘mini-series’ of 3 podcasts that we are creating for BBC Radio 1.

We intend to receive £4500 in income for the ‘mini-series’ as it will be based on 3 episodes each being billed at £1500 to BBC Radio 1 as stated within their commissioning guidelines (BBC,2017). This, unfortunately, will not cover all of our initial startup costs meaning we will not be making profit of this first ‘mini-series’, despite this in the real world we would be producing other content to allow us to bring in a more substantial income and there is the possibility included in the commisioning document of expanding a ‘mini-series’ such as what we are producing into a fully fledged series of 12 podcasts.

In terms of expenditure, this will be the following:

Studio hire- This is charged at £130 per hour with a roundtable based studio set up for us to record the panel, each podcast would require 1-2 hours of recording meaning each podcast would cost £260, and when this is multiplied by three it equates to £780. (Sound company,2017)

Equipment- We will be buying two laptops to allow us to edit, write scripts, research etc, without any sort of laptop we would be unable to do anything in regards to producing content. The cost of two Mac Book pros with decent specifications costs £1,449 per one meaning a net figure of £2,900.

Software- In terms of software, we will be needing Adobe Creative cloud which allows to get a wide variety of software as we will be required to produce short-form videos alongside pictures and gifs for social media channels which can all be done through creative cloud, which will cost us £720 per year. In terms of the digital audio workstation that we use it will be Logic, this is because it is significantly cheaper than others such as Cubase and Pro-Tools due to Logic not being subscription based and relatively cheap at its one-off purchase cost of £199.

Contributor fees- It would be very unlikely that people would do the podcast if they weren’t going to be paid for their time, meaning we will offer a flat rate of fees per person at £150 per person meaning that with an episode of 3 people it would cost £450 meaning a series would cost £1,350. However, the issue with this is that if someone was promoting something then we may not have to pay them as we are allowing them to promote their new book etc on our podcast. This means that we could potentially get a lower figure if we do not have to pay contributors.

Office- We have chosen to be based in central London as this means that we will have access to a huge talent pool that may be willing to be involved in the podcast and that the majority of the BBC Radio networks are based in London means that if we were to win other commissions then the production of these would be easier and we could attend meetings a lot more easily. However, this does not cheap with the office being £350 a month, meaning £4,200 a year.

November 8, 2017Simon Nunn No Comments

Radio 1 commisioning

The Radio 1 commissioning process is largely similar to that of Radio 4’s as we must again follow all the steps to become accredited as a BBC supplier which you find about here.However, in regards to how we would be pitching the idea, it would be vastly different and the final product would be significantly different from our original idea.

COMMISSIONING GUIDELINES

Radio 1 are looking for podcasts rather than that of traditional radio and the commissioning guidelines stress the importance of the finished piece being a podcast, not a radio programme that is turned into a podcast like with some of there pre-existing podcats e.g Greg James’ That what he said or Movies with Ali Plumb. BBC Radio 1 has been lacking a dedicated comedy slot for many years and this is aimed at changing this by making sure that it shows that BBC Radio 1 is ”unruly, infectious, and honest” (BBC,2017). The podcasts are also supposed to be talent lead meaning that in our podcast will revolve mostly around James leading the panel and the discussion as a whole alongside scripted elements that he delivers.

The guidelines also stress the importance of these podcasts being distinctive and being 100% original in regards to the ideas that are put into them and I would argue that our revised programme which you can find out about here is, especially for Radio 1’s audience has not had any political comedy let alone comedy for many years.

Another element that is stressed is that comedy has the potential to converse over areas that young people are interested in i.e politics as shown by young peoples engagement in the election and this means that we believe our idea would be suitable to pitch to radio 1 and politics allow us to fulfil the need being stimulating, exciting and require focused attention, as well as have spontaneity, energy and be provocative. For us, our panel members will also be crucial in whether we hit these goals as we will need people who are spontaneous and are provocative in their way of thinking at the same time as being funny, and i believe that we should potentially abandon the idea of it being clip lead and more conversationalist for these guidelines.

In relation to this is that the tone podcasts should be unguarded conversation be informal spontaneous again this will heavily relate to the way the piece is scripted as well as the contributors that we use with us needing to prioritise someone who can be spontaneous and speak their mind but at the same time be funny.

In terms of how many podcasts there are two options:

The first is a series based podcast which spans 12 episodes and the series needs to build a following for digital listening at the same time as having a strong narrative over 12 episodes, they must also be engaging and risk-taking by either innovation or being provocative alongside being informal and spontaneous.

The second option that we have is to produce a ‘mini-series’ of 2 to 3 episode that are riskier and/or play a role in developing new talent, this type of series lends itself to potentially becoming a longer series.

I believe that due to the nature of project we will be unlikely to fill 30 minutes on each month meaning that a shorter series of potentially six or three episodes would be much more likely for us to produce and allow us to not run out of material at the same time as not making the podcasts become dull and boring for the listener, as it should be engaging. Due to the nature of the audience, it also means that we would need to find political news stories that related to a young audience so that they can relate to what we are talking about.

This ultimately means we would pitch our podcast as a series of 3, due to its nature and the problem of potentially boring the listener if we had too many episodes due to the fact that they do not interrelate with one another. This type of series also lends itself to an extension outwards after we have more experience as

The Process

In terms of how we physically commision this again very similar to that of the process of Radio 4, we are required to submit a 250-word proposal for the first stage and fill out a questionnaire as to why we are an eligible company to work with. Once we have done this we would then be required to submit a full proposal which outlines all the relevant information for the following sections:

1- A detailed proposal responding to the commissioning brief that has been discussed above.

2- A section detailing the following:

The name of the person who would be dealing with the BBC on behalf of the production company.

The location of the production team

Evidence of that team having experience making relevant content

Talks with any relevant third parties that may be needed in order to fulfil the brief.

A strong budget outlining the cost per episode and where funding will come from if other sources are utilised.

Once this is submitted we would then pitch the idea in person to the commissioning team where we discuss and elaborate on the idea and answer any questions that may occur. This would then lead to us either signing a contract or not being offered a contract and if we were unsuccessful in the project we would then be offered feedback.

Assesment Criteria

The BBC will then assess our pitch in relation to three areas, these being: editorial proposal and capability (75%), value for money (20%) and risk (5%). In terms of the editorial proposal and capability, this means the programme must fit the network alongside a strong format that demonstrates innovation. It also outlines what experience a team should have, as they should understand the tone of the podcasts, have a knowledge of youth culture alongside having experience of on-air talent managing, plans for social media and have an appreciation of podcasts and spoken word programming.

We would also be assessed on Value for money meaning we would need to demonstrate a price per episode and have a strong financial plan to back up the project.

Finally, we would be assessed on the risk that it represents, with areas such as the BBC’s reputation, conflict of interests and the project complying with BBC policies.

Ultimately we would need to consider the criteria as to what the BBC commissioners are looking for in what we create and make sure that our project hits these as otherwise, we would never get the opportunity to put the programmes on.

This also allows me to fulfil and gain an understanding of the commissioning process for my learning objective as I now know what the BBC will expect from a finished product that they air and the process that commisioning a show goes through. I have also seen the differences between item to item as has been showing the difference between commisioning an ad hoc programme for Radio 4 that we initially decided upon before changing to create a podcast for Radio 1.

October 9, 2017Simon Nunn 1 Comment

Radio 4 Commissioning process

We would ideally have this programme aired on BBC Radio 4, as this is where the largest amount of commissioning for comedy is on the BBC network as, as shown in BBC 4’s style guide, and by a search on the BBC Radio Iplayer site with the search being category

https://downl oads.bbc.co.uk/radio/commissioning/radio-4-style-guide.pdf https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/categories/comedy

This clearly shows that BBC Radio 4 has numerous opportunities for comedy on its network, however, the problem that we will encounter is that there are only comedy programmes for either 28 minutes or 14 minutes, meaning that we would most likely have to pitch our idea of a comical review of the year programme as an ad-hoc commision. This is due to the fact that the programme would not fit into the commissioning opportunities that are available to us without going via this route. This means that we would have now missed the deadline to have pitched this programme for December this year as if you look at any of the radio 4 commissioning briefs it states that the pitching process alone takes over 2 months meaning that we would need to pitch our programme at a much earlier time, however it will vary via programme.

https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio/commissioning/R4_Book_of_the_Week_Tender_Brief_Autumn_2017.pdf

The issue that we would encounter by pitching an ad hoc radio programme is that the remit for these is incredibly difficult, the BBC site itself says that ”Please note, however, that the scope for pitching between rounds is narrow. In comedy and drama it is extremely narrow and normally related to availability of talent. This in effect means that the BBC must be fully behind our idea and believe that we would have the talent capable to pull the idea of. Due to the reasons, I have just stated above this means that we would be very unlikely to get our programme aired on BBC Radio.

Before we even got to the stage of commisioning the programme we would first need to register to be a supplier for the BBC, this means doing the following:

We would first need to register as a corporate entity
Have someone on the team who has experience producing network radio
Abide by BBC data protection law/ Willing to complete it
Comply with the BBC technical guidelines, these being:

1.Source material in a linear format and not in a compressed format

2.Smooth edits, with mixes being ridden to give a consistent listening experience

3.Peaks shouldn’t exceed -1dBFS (decibels relative to full scale

4. PPM shouldn’t exceed 6 (peaks per minute)

5. The programme should have appropriate dynamic range

6. Should be delivered as a 48k, 16 bit wav.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3RbcfDspW85d2TRG42wwhTy/technical-specification

Comply with the BBC terms of trade (general contr
Comply with the BBC guidelines, these being:

Bribery: complying with the Bribery Act

Children: data protection

Release policy for secondary radio and on-demand exploitation

Commercial development of digital brands

Data protection: crew

Data protection: senior

Diversity & Inclusion Commissioning Guidelines

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1jgMJfv7pSW8Cl4mHgxpc5y/policies-guidelines

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1L6ff727k9rVTNbLY8cBHm5/becoming-a-supplier

Once we had become a supplier we would need to submit a 250-word proposal outlining the programme and the personnel involved so in our case myself and James Paul-Hunter with an estimated price of the programme.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4fC4NcVXqkZntJv8ZHpClD8/pitching-ideas

BBC Commissioning Principles and Framework

This outlines the way in which the BBC would act when we are pitching our idea to them. The first stage is the commissioning principles which aim to make the way the BBC act with both commercial production teams (such as ourselves) or in house teams as fair as possible and make sure that everyone has an equal chance.

The other part of the principles and framework that the BBC abides by in the commissioning process is the commissioning framework which sets out the way the BBC will act with producers and make sure that they are fair and transparent. The framework consist of 13 parts:

1.Commissioning Guidelines: Outlines the objectives of the BBC within the process and how the BBC will make sure that those interested stay informed and make sure that everything is clear.

2.Editorial Control: Outlines how the BBC final editorial control and all the content that is produced is subject to their guidelines and procedures.

3.Terms of Trade : The BBC’s Objectives are to secure rights to programmes and make sure that all that do work obide by the BBC’s terms of trade.

4.Multiplatform and Audience interaction: BBC will outline when it wants multiplatform content and will consult with the relevant editor to make sure the content is suitable.

5.Proposing/Pitching ideas: States the everyone has the opportunity to pitch and that what is required within the pitch is clearly stated alongside everything being confidential.

6.Programme Pricing: Outlines how the BBC value a programme, this is based on budget, value of the programme to the schedule, third party investment, rights acquired by BBC.

7.Payment: Outlines how the BBC will pay by a method of staged payments.

8.Development: Outlines that BBC doesn’t usually fund development, however in circumstances the BBC has the option to develop programmes, decide to commission, treat development costs as included in the programme price, have costs repaid if the bbc doesn’t commission and the programme goes to a rival

9. Business Affairs: Outlines how the BBC will pay and act fairly with independents

10.Equality, diversity, inclusion and ethics: BBC will make sure that all that It works with respect their employees and abide by anti discrimination law, health and safety etc.

11. Outlines how BBC commissioners will act: They will serve the audience all over the nation and treat each company fairly and will act in a timely manner and inform producers of the process and rough timescales, they will give feedback in a timely manner if workload allows.

12; Dispute resolution: Outlines how the BBC will act in a dispute situation

13: Review: The BBC will provide an annual report stating the numbers of hours of programmes competed for and the level of competition for them.