“In a world where people can choose their news when and where they want it, and from a huge range of sources, we want to understand how best the BBC can retain their trust and confidence so that it remains clearly their number one choice.”

 

Probably by not being the broadcast arm of the Labour Party, the European Union, Climate fanatics and Al Qaeda.

 

 

 

Trust begins service review of BBC News and current affairs

The Trust has opened a public consultation today seeking views from audiences on the BBC’s News and current affairs output.

The review, announced in February, is the latest in the Trust’s rolling programme of service reviews.  It will examine the performance of the BBC’s network news output against the commitments set by the Trust in the BBC’s service licences and its broader public service role. 

The review will cover the BBC’s network news and current affairs for UK audiences across TV, radio and online, including:

• On TV, the daily national bulletins on BBC One, relevant weekday morning output (such as the Daily Politics) and Newsnight on BBC Two, 60 second news on BBC Three and World News Today on BBC Four. The review will also follow up on our 2012 service reviews of the News Channel and BBC Parliament.
• On radio, news bulletins and Newsbeat on Radio 1 and 1Xtra, news bulletins on Radio 2 and 3, Radio 4’s daily news programming (Today, World at One, PM, The World Tonight) and daily politics output, 5 live’s daily news output (largely its weekday daytime schedule) and news on the Asian Network.
• Online, the news sections of the BBC’s website and the Red Button, including mobile apps and social media. Current affairs output includes Panorama, This World and around 40 hours of output on BBC Two and Three, as well as political strands such as Question Time and the Daily Politics.  On radio this includes the range of Radio 4 and 5 live’s current affairs and politics programming. 

The review will particularly focus on what audiences think about the quality and distinctiveness of BBC News and current affairs, the ways that audiences consume and access BBC News, and how well positioned it is to deal with future challenges such as changing audience viewing habits and technological shifts.

 

 

Remember only talk about ‘quality and distinctiveness’ because:

This review will not look at impartiality, because the Trust already has a rolling programme of major impartiality reviews underway, or at the market impact of BBC News, because that is outside the scope of all the Trust’s service review work. 

Which is at odds with the earlier statement:

[We] will examine the performance of the BBC’s network news output against the commitments set by the Trust in the BBC’s service licences and its broader public service role.

 

Judging by past reviews by the BBC perhaps we should be judging the quality of those reviews…..

 

From Seesaw to Wagonwheel....which didn’t look at all at its coverage of Israel/Palestine…one of its most contentious areas of journalism.

Or The Balen Report…..into the Israel/Palestine conflict…..so contentious that the BBC spent £300,000 hiding the conclusions…presumably because it shows that the BBC has been working on the side of the Palestinians and providing anti-Israel propaganda.

Or the BBC’s Impartiality Review…Israeli-Palestinian Conflict…which found that the BBC was biased….in favour of Israel.

Or its science review….done by a man who is basically a BBC employee and a fundamentalist pro-manmade climate change fanatic, Steve Jones.

 

 

Let’s guess what the BBC’s final analysis of any review might be…..

Yes some issues need looking at…but overall we are doing rather well, and the People love us.