Cost of Radio Shows

The request was refused by British Broadcasting Corporation.

Dear British Broadcasting Corporation,

Could you please supply me with the following

1, The budget/running cost of these shows, either annually or per show.

2, The number of listeners per show with and without iplayer figures.

The shows are

Mary Ann Kennedy's Global Gathering - BBC Radio Scotland
Rapal - BBC Nan Gaidheal
Ralph Mclean - Soul Music - BBC Radio Ulster
C2: Lisa Gwilym - BBC Radio Cymru
Radio 3 Live in concert - BBC Radio 3
The World Tonight - BBC Radio 4
Marc Riley - BBC Radio 6

If the above is not available, then could you please give me a run down of ALL BBC Radio programming, with budgets/cost and listening figures , of course removing any that you would hold for the purposes of journalism, art or literature.

Yours faithfully,

Keith McRae

James West left an annotation ()

The BBC Annual Reports (http://www.bbc.co.uk/annualreport/downlo...) tell you how much is spent per channel.

According to the Executive Summary )http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/annualreport/... - PDF link) (Section 2-73) Radio Scotland cost £32.4m
Radios Ulster and Foyle cost £21.6m between them
Radio Cymru cost £16.1m
Radio 3 cost £50.7m
Radio 4 cost £119.8m
BBC 6 Music cost £10.8m

Potentially more interesting are the "cost per user hour" figures - how much the channel costs for each hour that one person listens to it (Section 2-5 for the countrywide services).

Radio 3 5.9 pence per user hour
Radio 4 1.4p
BBC 6 Music 1.4p

And from Section 2-7 for the nation channels...
Radio Scotland 6.8p per user hour
Radio Ulster and Foyle 4.8p
Radio Cymru 13.7p

So, although running Radio 4 is more than twice as expensive as Radio 3 it's larger audience, who listen to it for a long time each week, makes it better value per listener per hour.

And Radio Cymru looks relatively cheap until you take into account it's lower audience which makes it more costly per user hour.

I hope that's at least interesting to you, and perhaps even helpful.

Keith left an annotation ()

Thank you James for your reply on this

Although it is very interesting, I'd like to find out the shows budget and number of listeners with specifics rather than a general BBC overview

Thanks for your input though, it made some interesting reading in the links you provide, I had also looked at the BBC's previous FOI answers located here http://www.bbc.co.uk/foi/

FOI Enquiries, British Broadcasting Corporation

Dear Mr McRae,

Thank you for your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, as detailed in your email below. Your request was received on 20 February 2012. We will deal with your request as promptly as possible, and at the latest within 20 working days. If you have any queries about your request, please contact us at the address below.

The reference number for your request is RFI20120203.

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FOI Enquiries, British Broadcasting Corporation

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Dear Mr McRae

 

Please find attached the response to your request for information,
reference RFI20120203

 

 

Yours sincerely

Rachel Hallett

 

 

BBC Information Policy and Compliance

Room 2252, White City

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London W12 7TS, UK

 

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