UK - BBC lies in radio listening figures

Look at the spin and outright lie in this BBC report.

The BBC starts out by hailing "Radio 1 adds 700,000 listeners". You have to read into the story to find out that's for the last quarter. Then you have to dig a little more to find out the year to date and year on year figures which are 10.42 million and 10.24m respectively. In other words almost flat and maybe flat or even negative by years end.

Let's keep digging.

BBC Radio's share of listening is 54.7% – down on last quarter's record (55.4%) but still up on the year (54%).

All BBC Network Radio's reach of 32.85 million is up on the quarter (32.57m) and steady on the year (32.89m).

Remember that 32.89m figure.

I'm underwhelmed. It gets worse and better - worse for the BBC and better for us. Just listen to this spin.

BBC Radio 2 continues to perform strongly with 13.29 million listeners (12.94m last quarter and 13.27m last year).

Share, at 15.7%, is slightly down on the quarter and year (both 16%).

Only in Beeboid land can this be classified as "to peform strongly".

Continue reading the breakdown by channel which shows losses or miniscule gains. Then look at the chart at the end which has this weekly all BBC reach in thousands:

June 05 Mar 06 June 06

32,885 32,568 32,850

Overall loss of 35,000 year on year.

And that's a good thing.

But hang on a minute. Didn't the BBC tell us this at the beggining of their report that:

All BBC Network Radio's reach of 32.85 million is up on the quarter (32.57m) and steady on the year (32.89m).

But the BBC's own chart puts that figure at 32.85m and not 32.89m. By inventing the latter figure the BBC makes it look like a net gain on the year when in fact the correct figure shows a net loss.

That's the BBC for you.