But this local de-branding of “radio” is inconsistent. Television is still called “TV” and web stuff referred to as “On-Line” yet the radio is, er, to remain nameless, just a geographic area. So listeners now listen to “BBC Essex”, not “BBC Radio Essex”. Ditto BBC [Radio] Bristol, BBC [Radio] Shropshire.

Of course, commercial radio doesn’t use the term “radio” – we all listen to “Heart” or “Magic”, or “The Bear”, but those stations are not using pyramidal branding like the BBC which has a core brand. Heart still refers to its website (OK, it isn’t exactly local anymore….), as does Capital etc, as extensions of their brand, not alternatives. But the BBC seems to be trying to abandon sub-brand differentiators (i.e. platform descriptors) altogether. So no more “Radio”, just a piece of geography. But I bet a bankers Bonus that the listeners will still call it “Radio XYZ” or “BBC Radio XYZ”. It’s a confused branding mess for the average Johnny.

Matt is also right that the look/feel of local BBC websites is full of inconsistent links and terminology. Tacit links with the associated local radio station are patchy and poorly signposted. Odd considering it’s a fair bet most of the visitor referrals come the radio station plugging it all day on-air and when they get there it takes 5 clicks to find the local radio content. Navigation leads to all sorts of, frankly, duff material instead of showcasing the very best local material available, thus giving visitors a reason to listen again and a valued experience.

One thing you might try to illustrate this is click on any BBC local (radio) website (i.e. bbc.co.uk/countyname) just as you would be invited to do on-air. Now find the link which explain the recent RDS “Reset your Preset” campaign. Pretty major change for BBC local stations, hidden 3 or 4 clicks away on the website.

Question: Are BBC webstats are public domain information? I remember seeing somewhere that web stats would be published. Can we have the stats for the number of unique visitors (not hits or pag-imps) to the local sites and how many of these are to the local [radio*] sections of the sites, how many local live and local listen again streams are consumed daily/weekly, and how these compare to the RAJAR audience reach /cume for the relevant local [radio*] station. It would be interesting to compare and correlate how many visitors are sent by on-air mentions to those visitors who don’t also listen to the local [radio*] station (difficult to measure, obvioulsly).

* Why is the word [radio*] in brackets? Given the elimination of the term [radio*] in this de-branding, just try reading the post again and omit the word [radio*]. Doesn’t make sense.

Food for thought.

Rog

The BBC local online strategy has always been to do websites first and foremost to serve online audiences. Unlike commercial players, the BBC is charged with providing a service for everyone and BBC English Regions, in particular, has always superserved older audiences whilst underserving younger ones. The web was their opportunity to redress that balance.

The core BBC local services – news, sport, weather and travel are all (pretty much) finally simultaneously providing the same information online as you’d find on the radio. BBC Sport carries audio from local radio – both post-match analysis/interviews and commontary where rights allow. So although it’s not necessarily branded as BBC Radio x, there is a lot of value being exploited from BBC local stations.

So what else could BBC local radio audiences gain from their website? The BBC was, as a result of Graf, barred from doing events listings online. Even before the recent competition debarcle, competitions were removed from the BBC local sites as they were deemed to be providing unfair competitions (a decision the BBC took, they weren’t forced to).

BBC local radio covers a lot of issues in their programmes, but a lot of them are covered by other parts of the BBC’s online offering – and where they aren’t it’s generally because it was felt outside of the BBC’s remit. Again, it was the result of a review that the BBC really tightened up on duplication of content online … so you no longer get six (or was it eight) Glasto websites.

BBC local, the former where I live sites, will be moved to the BBC News templates (Bristol was the trial site, hence why it is as it is) and limited primarily to doing campaign support (for national initiatives).

What the above shows is that the BBC, as Nick points out, has been continually hemmed in by report/review/external requirements to the point that the local offering is more often than not limited by regulation than resource.

Olly

The BBC Radio Bristol web offering would, I hope, be a lot better had BBC local’s plans to expand not been shot down by Ofcom after intensive lobbying from vested commercial interests in the media.

You mention the Daily Mail – they had a lot to gain from ensuring the bbc local expansion was stillborn as this excellent blog post makes clear:

http://community.brandrepublic.com/blogs/gordons_republic/archive/2008/12/04/daily-mail-and-bbc-local-conspiracy-theory.aspx

though having lobbied for the bbc to become toothless in this market it would be typical (and quite funny) if the Daily Mail left it a couple of months, then published an article deriding BBC Radio Bristol for letting down licence-fee payers with its appallingly shoddy website.

I side with Gordon Macmillan (the guy who wrote the blog linked to above) on this – the multimillionaire owners of local newspaper publishing companies and other media conglomorates successfully stamped on a public service initiative that would have employed journalists at respectable salary levels.

Since the decision against bbc local, ITV (one of the biggest lobbyists against the expansion) have shut down their own ITV local strand and the local newspapers continue to sack journalists by the shedload.

There are good local newspaper websites out there, but they pay their employees a pittance, siphoning off any profit from this “developing market” to keep their owners/shareholders rich, all the while hoping their online presence develops to a point whereby they can sell the business, or merge it into a larger rival and sack the pitiful hacks who built it.

Professional journalists may soon be irrelevant anyway as bloggers (through twitter especially) lead the charge into all quarters. But this bbc project could have helped lead that charge by increasing the number of young creative minds employed in local news.

The online market for local news will develop without the BBC, and trusted brands will emerge, but without massive investment from the commercial sector, it won’t be any time soon. I can’t see that massive investment coming from anywhere right now.