Abstract:

This paper is in two sections. First we will give an account of audience measurement research commissioned by the BBC World Service in many different countries around the world. We will outline the purposes of this research, describe how it is conducted and make some observations on audience research in some of the more remote parts of the globe. In this section we can also take a glimpse at the global market for radio, beyond the more familiar territory of the developed industrialised world, and explore the factors which seem to lead to significant audiences for international radio. Audience research plays an important part in the BBC's public accountability. A public service broadcasting service needs to find out how the public uses it. This applies to international services as well as to domestic radio and television. Research ensures that the BBC World Service knows the international audience demand. With so many countries to cover with limited resources, surveys cannot be carried out very frequently. Continuous measurement is out of the question. Nonetheless, audience measurement surveys have been carried out in 94 countries in the last five years. In most cases these surveys are directly commissioned by the BBC. In others, we obtain data from surveys conducted by other international stations. There is close cooperation in this field.