This is similar to the Federal Government’s continuing attack on the ABC in Australia.
No it’s not. That article indicates that the UK government supposedly wants to near totally decimate the BBC. “They’ve got hundreds of radio stations” is a lie from whoever said that. When has the Australian government indicated they want to do similar to ABC?
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I was referring to the funding cuts over the past decade which forced the ABC to lay off hundreds of people and reduce local programming in regional areas.
BBC sets out plans to transform its local services
The BBC has set out plans to transform its local services in England as it seeks to serve audiences better, respond to lessons learnt during the COVID-19 crisis and make savings to tackle its financial challenges.
BBC England, home of the BBC’s local radio stations and regional TV news, will undergo a significant reinvention.
The new vision for regional and local services includes:
Modernising the BBC’s regional TV centres - investing in the latest technology and introducing a new, consistent operating model for each newsroom with digital story telling at its core.
Commissioning a broader range of TV programming that reflects life across England especially in the North and Midlands.
Launching a new investigative journalism programme on BBC One for audiences in the English regions.
Reimagining the BBC’s political coverage outside Westminster with weekly regional politics programmes retained and two new digital programmes piloted.
Continuing work already underway to explore what more the BBC can do in the North and the Midlands to better serve audiences in those regions.
BBC England must save £25m by the end of March 2022. It would mean in the region of 450 job losses out of the more than 3,000 staff currently working across the English regions. These proposals are subject to consultation with staff.
Political coverage outside Westminster will increase, with the 11 regional Sunday morning political programmes on BBC One reinvigorated. The programmes will undergo editorial and creative changes to ensure they have more impact and reach a broader audience. Two digital political programmes would also be piloted in Yorkshire and the Midlands. These would go on BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds.
A new weekly regional investigative journalism programme will launch on BBC One featuring long-form investigative journalism. It would be made in six English regions and replace current affairs programme Inside Out.
Elsewhere changes introduced in March at the start of the COVID-19 restrictions will continue. The 6:30pm bulletins on BBC One will have one presenter, so the bulletins are consistent across England and in line with the rest of BBC News. In Local Radio, the simplified schedule introduced in March will be made permanent – meaning each station will have three daytime shows and these shows will have one presenter.
The BBC has confirmed it will begin a new scheme covering the over 75s licence fee concession on 1 August.
Any household with someone aged over 75 who receives Pension Credit will be entitled to a free TV licence paid for by the BBC.
The scheme was delayed as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
UK must “unleash the full global potential of the BBC” - as new all time record global audience is announced
The BBC’s global reach increased by 11% year on year in 2020 to 468.2m people a week - the highest number ever.
BBC News accounts for 438.4m of the total with an annual increase of 13%. Digital platforms are key to the success, with an increase of 53% in BBC News users. A total of 151m users now access BBC News digitally according the annual Global Audience Measure which measures how many individuals the BBC reached weekly with its news and entertainment content in the year 2019/20.
Tony Hall, BBC Director-General, says: " We are without question one of Britain’s strongest and best-known brands, synonymous with quality and accuracy worldwide. Our international news services rank first for trust and reliability and the World Service remains a beacon of democratic values. Independent research shows that there is an exceptionally high correlation between places where people are aware of the BBC and places where people think positively about the UK. More than that, the BBC helps UK trade. This has perhaps never been more important. The UK will forge a new relationship with the world in the decade ahead, built on an ambitious vision of ‘Global Britain’. Success will mean drawing on all our considerable international assets, and that means unleashing the full global potential of the BBC."
In late March 2020, as the Covid-19 virus spread and trusted sources of information were in demand, BBC News recorded the highest reach of any international media organisation in the world with 310m people accessing coverage across 42 languages.
BBC global content is increasingly popular on global platforms like Youtube with a 129% increase in audiences to 47m a week - overtaking Facebook with a 31% increase to 43m. Twitter reach has doubled to 6m and Instagram also reaches 6m weekly.
Other highlights of the 2020 Global Audience Measure:
- BBC World News channel made significant gains to reach 112m - with growth in the Americas at 50%.
- BBC World Service languages up 13% to 292.1m with a big uptick in digital engagement among audiences aged 15-24 who now make up a third of the total. BBC News Hindi is now the second most popular service with 25m - behind Arabic with 42m (+67%). BBC Chinese saw an increase of 141%, Russian is up 32% and BBC Mundo 40%. Other big percentage increases include Serbian (+327%), Yoruba (+166%) and Afaan Oromoo (+143%).
- BBC Studios increased reach by 5.8m to 49.1m up 13%.
- BBC World Service English audiences up by 8% to 97m. The Global News Podcast remains the BBC’s most popular with audiences approaching 1m a week. Italy contributed 1.4m new listeners on DAB radio.
- BBC Media Action - the BBC’s international charity that helps to strengthen governance, improve people’s health and humanitarian response - saw an increase in audience of 4m to 18m.
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A more modern approach to funding the BBC would be for it to be given an allocation from the budget rather than licence fees, with the money perhaps coming from a very small increase in business tax. There is a cost in collecting the licence which would be eliminated if the money was raised by adding it to an existing revenue source.
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BBC iPlayer breaks records with best-ever first half of the year
A record-breaking number of viewers turned to BBC iPlayer in the first half of 2020, with 3.1 billion requests to stream programmes, up by 47% on the previous year.
April-June also marks a new best-ever quarter for iPlayer with 1.6 billion requests, an increase of more than half (59%) on the same quarter last year. Viewing was already up prior to the UK lockdown, with the first quarter 34% higher than the same quarter for 2019.
Hit new BBC Three drama Normal People and the third series of cat and mouse thriller Killing Eve make up all of the top ten most popular episodes so far this year. The latest chapter of Villanelle and Eve’s story tops the list, with episode one achieving 6.95 million requests and series 3 receiving a total of 35.6 million requests so far. It’s followed by the start of Connell and Marianne’s love story in Normal People, with the first episode receiving 5.54 million requests and the 12-part series getting an enormous 54.8 million requests - the highest for a drama series so far this year.
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The BBC Board has appointed Tim Davie as the 17th Director-General of the BBC, has started his new job today in London, with Presenters pay review and over 75’s license fees as things to do, first.
BBC Annual Report 2019-20
A strong year for BBC content - but we must keep reforming to be trusted, relevant and indispensable in the digital age.
This annual report covers April 2019- March 2020. During this period, over 90 percent of the UK population used the BBC each week. It was a strong year for programmes and services. The BBC also made significant efficiencies, boosted commercial profits to help fund quality programmes for the licence fee payer and made even more progress on gender pay. This is good progress, but the BBC can take nothing for granted and must keep reforming at an urgent pace.
The BBC remains the most used media organisation in the UK, with 41 million people per day on average using it last year. The 90 percent of the UK population using the BBC each week rose to 94 percent in March this year during the coronavirus outbreak. BBC iPlayer broke new ground, with a record 4.8 billion requests to stream programmes in 2019/20.
The BBC also remains number one for impartial news coverage, with 51 percent of news consumers naming the BBC as the source they are most likely to turn to. This is up from 44 percent in 2018/19 and far ahead of the next nearest provider.
https://twitter.com/bbcpress/status/1305755782273785862?s=20
BBC’s new morning show Morning Live started this week.
The retro set attracted criticism as reported by various number media. The content also sounds less than riveting but not far off some of the equivalent morning shows here (sans the advertorials).
The BBC reported that it had the highest audience in its timeslot peaking at 1.5 million viewers.
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That is some serious bullshit, what the hell is going on at the Beeb.
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BBC has scrapped the roles of channel controller for BBC One and BBC Two but BBC Three controller stays in place.
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