David Lloyd writes:

One thing we’re never short of at Boom is listener feedback!  We receive hundreds and hundreds of notes in various ways from you every week. Most are polite - a few are a bit silly. :)

It’s interesting when we receive an angry note which says "NEVER play that record again", given it’s often followed by a note from someone else saying how much they love the very same track! One person's 'awful' is another's fondest memory.

Music is a very subjective topic – and given how many thousands of different records we play, we accept that we’re going to play some that will not find favour. We could just play the huge hits which would likely find more universal favour – but that‘s what most stations do for good reason. We're different.

We've never said we won't play the most popular songs - that would be very daft - we just say we don't play them as often as other stations and we play many other songs too! 

You never know what's coming next - every song's a surprise. It's been that way since we launched - the only change being that very regular listeners may, by now, have heard a few times the song they had not hitherto heard for ages - even though we are now playing more different songs than ever! 

There are those who like the more unusual tracks we play – but also those who adore it when we play the most popular songs they can sing along to. We have to find a balance that appeals enough to you – but also appeals to your next door neighbour and hundreds of thousands of others. And we take into account that the majority of listeners only listen quite casually to Boom (and that’s the same for all radio stations) so we must make sure they hear some favourites when they do tune in, which means playing them sufficiently often.

The same is true of presenters.  We have a range of voices on-air, each with a different style. You will prefer listening to some more than others - just as you enjoy spending time with some people more than others in real life! The one you dislike hearing, is likely someone else's favourite.

So, whilst we consider individual comments on music and presenters, it’s impossible to act on the strength of each one. We’d have no records left to play and no presenters left to play them!  When we indicate we've reached a different conclusion from you, it's not that we're ignoring you - it's just that that we must ensure that what we do meets the tastes of as many existing and potential Boom listeners as we can. It's a challenge.

You’ll likely have seen our regular surveys every couple of months. They ask questions about anything we’d like to understand better – plus some regular questions.  For example, the proportion of music we play from each decade is influenced from the overall findings from this and earlier research.

The benefit of such projects is that they gauge the general views of literally thousands of existing listeners - and we can examine any changes over time.  Suffice to say, we are bowled over by the findings.

We also conduct focus groups from time to time to chat over key issues informally - and conduct a multitude of other research projects to establish the views of those who do not yet listen.

To those who doubt the value of research, we'd just say it's about asking many, many people what they think - and that's never a bad thing. Alongside the views of those who choose to write to us, we have to make sure we understand the perspective of the majority - who don't!

On top of that, we can see our audience behaviour in real-time from the overall levels of listening online. If something is very awry, it’s clear to see immediately – and similarly we know what proves popular. 

Longer term, our official independent audience figures published by Rajar give us some insight into trends and also more about the age and other general characteristics of our audience. The next figures for us and all other UK stations will be published on the 15th of May and that 'exam results' day is always a tense one for us as the data is used principally for advertising sales - so affects our income. We are currently enjoying our highest ever figures!

Overall, our goal is to provide the best possible service for as many people of our generation as we can. We are not bound by research or computer programmes - but we do all we can to educate all our decisions.

Thanks for listening - and helping us to understand your preferences. We really appreciate your help.

David