麻豆约拍

The 麻豆约拍 is today publishing its Annual Plan.

As the name suggests, this plan normally focuses on what the 麻豆约拍 will do in the year ahead. But as there’s a fair amount of uncertainty about what we’ll be faced with in the coming weeks and months, much of this Annual Plan is about how the 麻豆约拍 is trying to help the nation right now, as well as some of the brilliant editorial and longer term plans we still hope to go ahead with.

The last few months have been challenging for everyone, but they’ve brought renewed purpose to what the 麻豆约拍 does. This is a public health crisis, and getting out of it depends on having the right information. But with something like COVID-19, where we are all dependent on the actions of others, it’s not enough for a few individuals to have easy access to high quality and clear information – we all need to have it and we need to know that everyone else has it.

That’s where public service broadcasting comes in. It can reach a mass audience and is trusted by audiences. From the start of this crisis, we’ve felt that responsibility and therefore thought about how we can make the biggest difference.

Looking back, I think that happened in three stages.

The first stage was keeping our services on-air. Pretty much overnight, 90% of our staff were working from home, and we had to scramble to work out how to keep on broadcasting. Our teams – presenters and studio managers, ops and tech staff and everyone from editors to production coordinators – immediately found dozens of ways of broadcasting from spare bedrooms, sheds and cupboards. They’ve been amazing.

It worked. In that last week of March, nine out of ten adults consumed our news across radio, television and online. Our journalism on Newsbeat, Radio 4 and 5 Live, and our news bulletins across our stations too, helped us all learn how we could stay safe. The teams elsewhere helped too, including our DJs. It became clear that certain parts of the population weren’t being reached by the news, so our presenters took it on themselves to get the message out through their shows too. Dance DJs were suddenly urging audiences to wash their hands, rather than put them up in the air.

This first phase lasted for a couple of weeks, the initial stage of the lockdown. We streamlined our schedules, and found new ways to make our programmes. We then started thinking hard about how we could help our audiences live in this new normal – or New Norman as a caller to Radio 2 said her child was calling it.

What we all wanted during this time of isolation was company. When we can’t meet in person, we can still meet on the radio. I’ve lost track of the number of presenters who have told me what a privilege it is to be broadcasting at the moment, finding the right word or the right song to get someone through the day. Nothing can sum up radio’s importance right now better than what our audiences say. To take one example:

Thank you so much to you and the whole of Radio 2 for continuing to provide such a crucial service...it's never been more important and needed than right now, especially for those of us who live alone. Broadcasting straight into our homes helps keep us connected and a part of a community. Love it and love you guys.

As well as keeping people company, we wanted to cheer people up, to help them escape. Whether hitting a chord with a nation in lockdown with Radio 1’s starry cover of Times Like These, or 麻豆约拍 Sessions on Radio 3, or our Thursday morning Singalong across our pop stations. Whether Elis and John’s take on living in isolation, or Dotty and Robby’s in Too Rude for Radio. Whether Louis Theroux interviewing guests about being Grounded, or Gilles Peterson creating a five room audio nightclub for 6 Music’s stay home rave.

And to help fill the void left by live sport, 麻豆约拍 Radio 5 live and 5 live Sports Extra have been replaying some classic cricket commentaries from memorable Ashes Tests, England’s victorious 2017 Women’s World Cup Final and every England game from last year’s winning Men’s World Cup campaign.

With the lockdown being modified, it now feels we’re entering a third stage. So we’ve asked ourselves again – how can 麻豆约拍 Radio serve the public right now?

We want to continue to inform

And we’re doing so in different ways so that all our listeners have access to relevant and correct information. For example, 麻豆约拍 Asian Network has worked with British Asian doctors to publish videos with important advice in seven different South Asian languages in a bid to tackle the spread of misinformation during this crisis and help public health messages reach as wide an audience as possible.

We also want to think about what comes next. Emergency commissions like Radio 4’s Fallout or regular series like The Briefing Room and 麻豆约拍 Inside Science have already been asking that question. We’re also developing plans for special programming throughout the year, when Radio 4 will create a new space to examine what kind of a society and economy we’ll want after the crisis, launching in June and working with 5 Live and World Service to broaden the debate across our audience.

We want to keep our audiences company

Our presenters across our stations will continue to do that, and we have some specials lined up too. Desert Island Discs is now recording remotely so that we can continue to hear from castaways, and next week The Archers returns with new lockdown episodes. Live music will be back on Radio 3 from June with special concerts from Wigmore Hall, and on Radio 4, we’re refocusing The Listening Project to be a service that puts the isolated in contact with others that they may have something in common with but in the real world would almost certainly never meet.

And with so many of us having rediscovered our love of quizzes in lockdown, on Bank Holiday Monday, Radio 2 will host its All Day PopMaster, with listeners and some of the UK’s best loved 麻豆约拍 and commercial radio presenters competing against each other across the station’s daytime shows in the nation’s favourite pop quiz.

We want to help our audiences escape

Festivals may be off, but the festival spirit isn’t. This weekend, we are staging a whole festival on air, 麻豆约拍 Sounds and 麻豆约拍 iPlayer, with Radio 1’s Big Weekend UK 2020 coming to listeners across the country, with more than 100 performances across five stages.

And next month the 麻豆约拍 will bring you the best of Glastonbury over the years, along with some special live performances, celebrating 50 years of this iconic festival. The whole nation will be able to pitch their tent, physical or metaphorical, in their living room, garden or bedroom, and {use the power of social media to} have a great weekend of music and fun.

For Desert Islands Disc day on Friday 5 June, we’re asking the nation to share their stories about a piece of music that has mattered most to them during lockdown, including key workers who have helped us all through this crisis. We’ll feature some of the music and the stories behind the songs in a special programme at 9am, and throughout the day more of the stories from people around the UK will be on shows including Woman’s Hour, World at One and PM.

On 麻豆约拍 Sounds, listeners can escape their homes with our special COVID-19 collection with music and natural soundscapes from the 麻豆约拍’s natural history archives, including a unique Mindful Mix we have just launched, featuring a blend of sounds from nature and calming classical music introduced by David Attenborough in support of Mental Health Awareness week.

We want to help our audiences create

Last week, we invited our audience to grab an instrument or dust off their vocals for a nationwide performance of You Got The Love. 1,500 people did - and their performance, mixed with the 麻豆约拍 Orchestras and Choirs went out on Thursday. Not a dry eye was left in the house. And we’ll also continue to celebrate creativity and culture. Radio 3 and Radio 4 will carry on playing their part in providing culture in quarantine and we’ll confirm how we hope to create a version of the 麻豆约拍 Proms for times like these.

We want to educate ourselves

麻豆约拍 Radio has been supporting our brilliant Education colleagues deliver Bitesize Daily, with podcasts to guide parents through what’s available. Greg Jenner’s 麻豆约拍school History on Radio 4 is giving audiences 15 minutes lessons, while we’re bringing archive editions of In Our Time out to match what’s on the secondary curriculum.

Our audiences rely on radio, in normal times and during turbulence. The recent set of RAJARs last week measured the period before lockdown, so they did feel like a message from another era. However, we were pleased to see that we’d gained young listeners on the previous quarter. 麻豆约拍 Sounds continues to do well, now reaching up to 3.5 million people every week, well above our target.

But these few months aren’t about audience figures. Even in normal times, they’re only an indirect measure of success. The 麻豆约拍 doesn’t exist to chase ratings – we are funded to make a difference, to individuals and society.

In lockdown, for 麻豆约拍 Radio and Music, that means five things. Informing and educating. Keeping our audiences company and helping them escape. And seeing if we can encourage everyone to get creative. With the next few months so uncertain, we can’t say if this is a plan for the year, or for a few months. But whatever turns out to be true, it is a privilege to be broadcasting during this terrible period.

And now… wash your hands.