The summer months have been relatively quiet in the media world but here is a summary of some stories worth mentioning.
BBC World Service facing financing problems. The Head of the Service is in talks with the Foreign Office to increase its support if the UK is to retain its world reputation as a soft power in turbulent times. Last year the Conservative Govt put £100 million into the BBC World Service with the BBC putting in £265 million. There is a likelihood of cuts to the Serivce due to the BBC’s financial problems and the new Government needs to provide more support. As our members may recall, The World Service was previously funded entirely by a Foreign Office Grant until the Chancellor George Osborne in 2014 asked the BBC to contribute to its funding whilst the Governments contribution has continued to diminish.
The underlying media story during the last few months has been a series of sex and bullying stories involving high profile presenters and of course Strictly Come Dancing. The 20th season of this hugely popular Saturday night stalwart begins on 14th September. The report due on allegations against Giovanni Pernice has not been released.
Another high-profile BBC figure, Hugh Edwards, has received a 6 month suspended sentence. It seems that the DG sent an email to all staff rallying troops after a series of sex scandals and said it was wrong when the BBC became the story. The media frenzy surrounding Edwards and Strictly was not helped by the recent sacking of One Show presenter Jermaine Jenas.
Online has for the first time overtaken television in an annual survey of the UK’s news habits.
Research by the broadcast regulator Ofcom reveals 71% of the population said they used online services for news versus 70% who watch TV news bulletins.
Over the last year, online sources grew from 68% to 71%, while social media also saw a rise from 47% to 52%. For people aged between 16 and 24, the number saying they use social media for news was 82%
The BBC remains the biggest single source, with 68% of people saying they turn to it for news. However, this is a survey of what people say they do – analysis based on actual usage can paint a different picture, showing for instance that BBC News reaches 75% of the UK population on an average week.
The biggest falls in the survey were for traditional news providers. Newspapers and their websites saw the number of people saying they used them drop from 39% to 34%. TV news fell from 75% to 70%. BBC News online also fell from 22% to 18%.
The survey, however, does not measure usage of specific sites. The BBC (1.2 billion visits) and CNN (710 million visits) are the two largest news websites in the world, according to the UK Press Gazette’s most recent monthly survey. Both saw significant increases in traffic over the last year.
Further analysis of the report can be viewed @
