the times | Thursday November 26 2020 1GM 11
News
People working in television and radio
are twice as likely as the general popu-
lation to have been educated at private
school, figures show.
About 13 per cent of employees at the
BBC and other broadcasters were pri-
vately educated, compared with 7 per
cent of the overall population.
Staff at the BBC (60 per cent), ITV
(50 per cent) and Channel 4 (49 per
cent) are also more likely to have been
brought up by parents in professional
occupations, as against a national aver-
age of 33 per cent.
The elite dominance of the British
media industry is revealed in Ofcom’s
latest annual diversity review. The
Private school elite dominate media
watchdog found that broadcasters
appear to be employing a greater pro-
portion of women (48 per cent), ethnic
minorities (14 per cent) and disabled
people (7 per cent) than last year.
However, the report said that
progress at improving diversity re-
mained “far too slow”, with some
groups consistently under-represen-
ted. Only 7 per cent of television
employees and 6 per cent of radio
employees define themselves as dis-
abled, compared with 19 per cent of the
working-age population.
Ethnic minorities and especially
black people continue to be overlooked
for senior management posts, the data
suggests. Only 8 per cent of television
executives are from a minority ethnicgroup, even though they account for
12 per cent of the national workforce.
Ofcom said the sector needed to
broaden the geographic and social
make-up of its workforce, and “look
beyond London”, if it was truly to serve
its audience.
Tim Davie, the BBC’s director-gener-
al, has pledged to transform the corpo-
ration into a “50/20/12 organisation” —
with a workforce that is 50 per cent
female, at least 20 per cent from ethnic
minorities, and 12 per cent disabled. He
also wants to recruit fewer people edu-
cated at private school and Oxbridge.
Audiences consistently said that they
expected to see programmes that
authentically portrayed modern life
across the UK, according to Ofcom.Matthew Moore
BBC executives spent £300,000 of li-
cence fee money on expenses including
five-star hotels and business-class
flights last year, an investigation found.
The expenditure included £8,000 for
Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the former di-
rector-general, to make return trips
from London to Delhi and to Nairobi.
Fran Unsworth, director of news and
current affairs, who has been leading an
efficiency drive, cost the BBC £1,105 in
charges and fees after cancelling a
return flight to Kenya in October 2019.
The BBC’s head of drama claimed
£6,500 for flights to Los Angeles andBosses spent £300,000 from
licence fee on travel claims
Matthew Moore two stays at luxury hotels in Venice.
The audit conducted by the Taxpay-
ers’ Alliance campaign group with the
Daily Mail found that 36 of the BBC’s
most senior bosses, who each earn at
least £200,000 a year, together claimed
£304,000 in expenses.
Julian Knight, chairman of the Com-
mons culture committee, said: “Now
more than ever the BBC must demon-
strate it provides value for money for
licence-fee payers”.
BBC regulations state that the lowest
price economy flights should be taken.
A BBC spokesman said: “We have strict
policies in place for essential travel and
expenses in order to keep costs low.”Older, wealthier viewers are falling out
of love with the BBC and contributing
to a decline in its total audience.
Britons spent an average of two
hours and 22 minutes a day with the
national broadcaster’s television, radio
and digital services last year, down by 19
minutes since 2017. Middle-class and
older people have been the BBC’s most
devoted audience but even they are
starting to drift away, according to
Ofcom, the media regulator.
The proportion of over-55s with a
positive impression of the BBC has
slipped from 64 per cent to 62 per cent
in two years, while the corporation’s
reach among higher socio-economic
households has fallen from 96 per cent
to 92 per cent.
“Reach is decreasing among these
loyal groups, and older audiences in
particular are starting to show signs of
decreasing satisfaction,” the watchdog
said in its annual report on the BBC.
Ofsted has also found that:
6 Eighty-seven per cent of the popula-
tion use BBC services, a fall from 92 per
cent three years ago.
6 People aged 16-34 year spend less
than an hour a day with the BBC, down
22 per cent in two years.
6 Only 54 per cent of adults believe
that the BBC provides impartial news
and about 20 per cent rate the corpora-
tion badly for impartiality.
6 Viewers now see the BBC as the least
impartial public service broadcaster,
behind ITV, Channel 4 and Sky.
Ofcom concluded that the BBC was
continuing to deliver its public service
remit. It also praised the corporation’s
“effective and rapid” response to the
coronavirus crisis. It warned, however,
that the broadcaster’s declining rele-
vance to key groups — including work-
ing class viewers, ethnic minorities and
those outside the southeast of England
— threatened its future.
“If audiences do not consider the
BBC a core part of their viewing, they
may not see value in the licence fee,
which in turn risks the BBC’s ability to
deliver its mission and public purposes
in future,” the report said.
Ofcom identified a class divide in
perceptions of the BBC’s news cover-
age. Consumption of the news among
lower socio-economic groups has fall-
en from 71 per cent two years ago to
63 per cent this year, while viewing by
higher earners has remained stable.
Working-class audiences were less
likely to say that BBC News was impar-
tial, helped them to understand the
world, and reflected a range of view-
points, than the rest of the population,
Ofcom found.
Overall, more Britons were dissatis-
fied with the BBC’s news performance,
up from 14 per cent to 17 per cent.
Women in particular appeared to have
been turned off by last year’s general
election coverage.
The research suggests that the public
share the concerns of Oliver Dowden,
the culture secretary, that the BBC is
too metropolitan and London-centric.
Across the country, 48 per cent of
those from working-class backgrounds
rated the BBC highly for “showing agood range of programmes that include
people like me”.
Ofcom urged the BBC to take a
“bolder approach” to enforcing impar-
tiality and welcomed new social media
guidelines for staff.
The report did not identify individual
programmes but the BBC’s big autumn
drama launch, an adaptation of A Suita-
ble Boy, underachieved in its primeSunday night slot. Recent episodes of
Question Time, a favourite with older
viewers, have attracted audiences of
1.3 million after regularly exceeding
2 million last year.
The BBC said: “We welcome Ofcom’s
report, which confirms audiences value
the BBC particularly for high-quality,
creative programmes, educational con-
tent and trusted and accurate news.”T
he BBC has had a
single-minded focus on
winning back young
audiences, who spend
significantly less time with
its services (Matthew Moore writes).
Ethnic minorities and
working-class people, especially
women, have also been identified as
problem demographics. If these
groups don’t see their lives reflected
on screen, the argument goes, they
will be less and less willing to fork
out £157.50 for the licence fee.
The new Ofcom research
highlights another disquieting trend:
the broadcaster’s bedrock audiences
— the middle aged and older, the
affluent and educated — are starting
to switch off as well. For now it is a
trickle rather than a flood. The
proportion tuning into the BBC each
week remains high among those
aged 55 and older (93 per cent) and
wealthier Britons (92 per cent), if
not as high as two years ago (96 per
cent in each case).
Part of the shift is parents and
grandparents beginning to embrace
the digital viewing habits of their
children. Thirty-two per cent of
those aged 55 to 64 used on-demand
services such as Netflix and Amazon
Prime Video in the early days of the
pandemic, up from 25 per cent
before. There is also greater
competition for the ears of
traditional Radio 2, Radio 3 and
Radio 4 listeners, thanks to music
platforms such as Spotify and new
commercial stations like Times
Radio.
The risk for the BBC, however, is
that its relentless pursuit of youth is
pushing away the very people who
have been the most reliable
consumers and defenders of its
public service content. In the past
few years respected presenters —
from Dame Jenni Murray and Jane
Garvey on Woman’s Hour to sports
broadcasters such as John Inverdale,
Geoffrey Boycott and Cornelius
Lysaght — have been sidelined for
young upstarts while tens of millions
of pounds has been diverted into
youth programming. If the BBC
doesn’t value us, older audiences
may well think, why should we value
them?Older viewers switch off the BBC
Matthew Moore Media Correspondent
Loyalty tested
by allure of
Netflix & Co
Performance in numbers
87%
British adults reached by
the BBC last year. The figure
was 92% three years ago93%
BBC reach among over-55s.
In 2018 it was 96%58 min
The time that 16-34s spend
on BBC services each day,
down 16 minutes since 2017£238m
Annual expenditure on
online products, including
apps and website. Up from
£190m in 2017-20%
The proportion of Britons
who believe that BBC News
is not impartial£1.2bn
The BBC’s spending
on first-run British
programmes, down
6% on 201867%
Users who agree that
the BBC website
offers something
that others do not12m
People who signed upto a video subscription
service such as Netflix or
Disney Plus during the
pandemic17%
Adults who are dissatisfied
with BBC News coverage53%
The reach of BBC One
news services, down
from 65% in 201013%
The proportion of
BBC TV staff who
went to private
schoolBBCAnalysis
Question Time,
hosted by Fiona
Bruce, has struggled
to keep viewers
without a live
audiencetp5
The
nsBBC One’s new
Saturday night talent
show Little Mix
The Search had
disappointing ratings