Late Night Woman's Hour - BBC, Historical Context

BBC, Historical Context

• We live in a digitally convergent age.
• Increase in digital radio rather than analog, the podcast is digital.

• BBC is a public broadcasting service and is publicly and funded owned and can be watched live whereas Netflix is a streaming service funded from its subscription. The BBC does have a streaming service for iplayer and digital radio on their website. Netflix is entirely online-based, relies on the internet and is an app. BBC shows their own TV shows and is only available in the UK, whereas Netflix not only makes their own shows they show shows from different channels. 
• The BBC is a publicly funded organisation. PBS, public broadcasting service. The BBC has a remit to produce a certain amount of new programming every year, they create and show high quality news programming. Netflix doesn't have to make news and therefore doesn't have a clear political bias. 
• The news is expensive, you have to have lots of people and find the right news to report, send people to other countries to report and maintain a neutral political bias.
• IPlayer lacks choice and options, with series and films being available for a limited time and is clumsy.
• Curran and Seaton - profit and power in the media industry.
• BBC doesn't need to make money, it is a public broadcasting service.

Woman's Hour

• BBC4 Radio is targeted and appeals to a middle-class and older audience.
• LNWH is a spin off of Woman's Hour and started in 2015.
• Appealing to a niche audience.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J-SF6SBAr4


• In a letter to The Daily Worker, in 1946, a Mrs Bridget Long wrote: “The programme is much too patronising. What women want is a programme to compensate us for being tied to our domestic chores, to help us keep in touch with the world outside, whether it’s books, films, politics or other countries.” 
• Subsequently, it was noted “There was a feeling among many listeners that they were being patronised by the BBC and that both the material and the style of presentation appeared to be directed at adolescents, not grown women.”

Vaginas/Pockets 

• The episode meets the needs of a diverse group of audiences by 
• Potential regulatory issues does this raise? It raises no issues, however the topic of vaginas maybe seen 'controversial' and seen as 'taboo'.
• 'Intimate area' 'Say vagina, it's okay'.
• Patriarchal hegemony, women are expected to look presentable and smell nice, 'we aren't clementines'.
• Preferred reading - empowerment, excitement, freedom
• Oppositional - potentially uncomfortable and shocked.
• Niche and fragmentary audience.
• Why is there a Woman's Hour? As well as an International Women's Day? Because the target audience for many media products was for men, and women have been overshadowed and overlooked in history.