Ofcom have published their latest annual report into TV viewing habits, and it confirms what everyone – including the BBC – already knows about the licence fee model: it’s outdated. Broadcast TV’s weekly reach had its biggest ever annual drop, falling from 83% to 79%. Meanwhile, viewing of broadcast TV fell by 12%. This decline was greatest amongst young audiences, where viewing dropped by 21%, yet even the “core” 64+ audience is switching from broadcast to streaming. Over 64s watched 8% less broadcast TV, as subscriptions to Disney+ rose from 7% to 12%…
While commercial TV revenues did rise, this was driven by online video, where revenue rose by 4.5%; Public Service Broadcasters saw their revenues fall by 1.8%. BBC One saw its weekly reach fall by 12% on 2017 as all BBC portfolio channels, combined with BBC Two, failed to reach even half of audiences. Streaming Video on Demand increased 21.5% year-on-year. A subscription-based BBC funding model can’t come soon enough…
Co-conspirators can read Ofcom’s full report below:
Veteran BBC newsreader George Alagiah has passed away following a nine-year cancer battle. His death was announced this afternoon in a statement by BBC Director-General Tim Davie:
“Across the BBC, we are all incredibly sad to hear the news about George. We are thinking of his family at this time. George was one of the best and bravest journalists of his generation who reported fearlessly from across the world as well as presenting the news flawlessly. He was more than just an outstanding journalist, audiences could sense his kindness, empathy and wonderful humanity. He was loved by all and we will miss him enormously.”
R.I.P. George
Gary Lineker is standing by his tweets and claims to have had several conversations with BBC Director-General Tim Davie in recent days. The Sun are reporting they’re standing by the footballing star, and he’ll face no further action…
Gary Lineker is back in the news following another of his political interventions – and the BBC’s less than convincing response that he’s to be “reminded of his responsibilities on social media”. Guido thinks it’s worth considering the other occasions he’s been supposedly taken to task by the corporation. Co-conspirators won’t need reminding that, despite all of this, Gary still enjoys his £1,350,000 licence-payer funded salary funding his partisan platform:
- In response to Gary’s tweet yesterday comparing the government’s immigration policy to Nazi Germany, the BBC have said they will speak to him so he’s “reminded of his responsibilities on social media”.
- In October 2022, just a month after Davie insisted Gary “understands the guidelines”, the BBC found Lineker in breach of impartiality guidelines for a tweet attacking the Tories and their “Russian donors”. Gary has not deleted the tweet.
- In August 2022, BBC Journalist Neil Henderson criticised Lineker’s tweets, saying he’d “be sacked” for the same offences. He added “The BBC lives or dies by its impartiality. If you can’t abide it, get off it.”
- In September 2020, Tim Davie told the DCMS Select Committee, in response to a question about Gary, that he could take BBC stars “Off Twitter”, adding he knew people wanted to see “hard action”. This was 30 months ago.
- On the 2020 announcement of the BBC’s annual report, Tim Davie pledged new impartiality guidelines, and singled out Lineker. Saying Gary “knows he has a responsibility to the BBC in terms of social media”.
- In December 2018, BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew criticised Lineker. He said “I’d be sacked if I followed your example”.
Following this latest furore Lineker has just tweeted “I’ll continue to try and speak up for those poor souls that have no voice. Cheers all.” BBC figures criticising Lineker time-after-time have made no difference, leftie-Lineker just carries on tweeting his rule breaking, partisan talking points and Tim Davie meekly lets it pass…
Tim Davie has said it out loud. According to the Telegraph, the BBC Director-General claimed in a staff meeting on Tuesday that it’s “truly amazing” the broadcaster is “pulling off” forcing people to pay the £159 licence fee. Apparently it’s “glorious” they “don’t need to make a profit on everything”…
“It’s truly amazing what we’re pulling off by the way. That most households are pretty happy paying a licence being a forced payment. It’s amazing what we’re pulling off […] People think we’re the cat with the cream at the moment and I know it doesn’t feel like that internally and I really am very sensitive about saying that.”
He also insisted that ITV and Sky are “in crisis“… despite the BBC themselves cutting local radio stations and merging news channels:
“Our budgets are slightly better than some of the commercial operators and the lovely thing is we can play long term as well, we don’t need to make a profit on everything which is glorious.”
On the issue of bias, Davie claimed “there’s a whole load of waffle talked about, you know, the Left. It’s not largely a Left or Right thing at the moment, it’s social issues, it’s rural affairs, what you think about the countryside, what you think about climate change, what you think about diversity.” What does Tim think about his presenters repeatedly ignoring his own impartiality rules?
Guido’s old enough to remember when Tim Davie claimed “even more” transparency was vital to improving public trust in the BBC, and promised change. Unfortunately, it turns out nobody in the corporation was actually listening. According to new data from the TaxPayers’ Alliance, the BBC’s average response time to FoI requests has increased from 11 to 16 days since 2019, with the number of responses within the 20 working day statutory deadline also falling by 4% in the same period. The longest response period has more than doubled, from 86 working days in 2019 to a whopping 215 working days in 2021…
Likewise, the number of requests the BBC has decided are worthy of responding to – even if only partially – has dropped from 69% to 63%. The usual excuse they like to trot out is that the information requested simply falls outside the scope of the FoI, and that “the BBC is not required to supply information held for the purposes of creating the BBC’s output or information that supports and is closely associated with these creative activities.” In practice, that means it has no obligation to tell the public how much their ludicrous rebrand cost, or how much the taxpayer coughed up for a ten-part audio series and a TV documentary on Shamima Begum…
At the time of going to pixel, Tim Davie is currently in front of the Public Accounts Committee to talk about the BBC’s value for money. Worth bearing in mind…
