Roger Bolton's Beeb Watch – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Pat Younge, former BBC Chief Creative Officer and board member at ITV Studios, responds to allegations of bias made against the BBC’s Panorama programme; outlines proposals from the British Broadcasting Challenge for renewing the BBC’s charter and ensuring its long-term independence and relevance; and discusses the impact of media consolidation by wealthy, powerful figures in the US and how this affects the UK media landscape, especially Channel 5. We also discuss broadcast funding models, governance reforms, the importance of universality and trust, the role of citizen assemblies and the prominence of news and current affairs.

“The BBC is like the sun around which our entire broadcasting universe revolves. So we need to get the BBC right. If everything else is going to be right.”

Find out more about the British Broadcasting Challenge: britishbroadcastingchallenge.com

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Matt Frei is the Europe editor and presenter of Channel 4 News who delivered the annual Steve Hewlett Memorial Lecture. We discuss his speech, the state of democracy in the United States and whether what is happening there can happen here, BBC's coverage of Gaza and the propaganda war, challenges facing traditional news organisations and whether there is a place for GB News, the domination of the news cycle by Trump, his personal journey from Germany to becoming a prominent British journalist, and the complex media landscape in the era of social media and political polarisation.

"The audience wants stories to be told to them. It's how we do it and to how many people. That's really the issue here. But the internet, the diversification, the anarchy of what we have before us is a golden opportunity to tell more stories to more people, or a different group of people in different ways, and that's fantastic, and we should celebrate that."

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Catherine Johnson, Professor of Media and Communications at the University of Leeds, is co-author of the report Behind the screen, how streaming is changing public service media, which was published this week and produced by the University of Leeds, the International Broadcasting Trust (IBT), the Campaign for the Arts and the Sandford St Martin Trust. 

We discuss its findings and the challenges in measuring public service programming on streaming platforms, refusal of data by public service broadcasters, discoverability and personalisation issues, the decline in certain genres, the impact on independent producers, recommendations for improving transparency and accountability, the role of government and regulators and incentivising PSBs to broaden content.

“I said, at an event recently, "We've got 10 years to save public service media." And someone from the sector came back and said, "No, we've got three years to save public service media."”

Read the full report here: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/229430/

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Katy Searle has recently left the BBC after a long career in news – over three decades. She was in charge of all of the BBC’s political output for 8 years up until last year, during which time huge savings had to be made. More recently Katy was director of news programmes and current affairs. We discuss the Russell Brand scandal, Ofcom's decision on GB News, impartiality and the impact of cuts on the organisation.

"If you look at how long the Brand's investigation took, they spent two years doing that. Now, I wonder whether that's something that the BBC would be able to do, to devote that time. Of course, it's got some brilliant successes in the past, but it's vital that the BBC continues to do that and makes that a real focus."

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Nick Ferrari, LBC breakfast presenter and one of the UK's longest serving commercial radio presenters discusses impartiality, local radio, journalistic license and competition with the 'Today' programme.

“Within the M25 we put up a fight against ‘Today’, we're not bad, but they are an absolute giant. Once you start getting out of the M25, I more than keep my own against ‘Today’. And you go to some cities, and actually, I will outperform the show in some cities.”

He also looks back on a remarkable and colourful career that started as a 7 year old in his father’s news agency, and included helping to launch LIVE TV.

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Samira Ahmed is the presenter of Radio 4’s arts programme ‘Front Row’ and for eleven years has presented 'Newswatch' – the sister programme and television news equivalent to 'Feedback' - which also aims to hold the BBC to account on behalf the licence fee payer. We discuss BBC coverage of the Huw Edwards story, the ability of 'Newswatch' and 'Feedback' programmes to hold the BBC to account and pay inequality.

"Let's face it, it's mostly older white men coming out to speak on this and a lot of it has been very defensive."

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Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications at the University of Westminster is a writer and broadcaster who has been involved in policy analysis at the highest levels, both nationally and internationally, for the last 35 years. Roger and Steven discusses the BBC presenter scandal: the actions of the BBC and Sun newspaper, BBC coverage of the story, privacy laws and whether the BBC is facing an existential crisis.

“I think it's self-indulgent and I think it's self-obsessive. And it's self-indulgent to the point of actually acting counter to the BBC's proper news values which should be to think about stories that are important."

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Andrew Neil, the former Sunday Times editor has become arguably the best political interviewer in the business, someone whom Boris Johnson and Liz Truss were desperate to avoid. This week we’re talking to the man who spent 25 years at the BBC presenting programmes such as This Week, Sunday Politics, The Daily Politics, and Politics Live.  Andrew Neil then left the corporation and became the lead presenter and chairman of GB News, but not for long. After only 8 programmes he left.  Due to cuts at Channel 4 his current 'Andrew Neil Show' has been cut for at least this year. We discuss public service broadcasting, left wing bias, impartiality, GB News and plans for the future. 

"A serving Conservative politician interviewing a Conservative government minister I'm actually surprised. It has surprised me how tolerant Ofcom has been of this kind of stuff. Certainly, when I was involved in trying to put together GB News it never struck me that Ofcom would allow that sort of thing to happen. Indeed, I always regarded Ofcom as something of an ally and keeping us within the bounds of proper mainstream broadcasting.”

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Ofcom, the UK communications industry regulator was in front of the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport select committee on Tuesday on the same day as Ofcom chief executive Melanie Dawes published an article in the Daily Telegraph. In recent years, an increasing number of politicians have fronted or guest presented current affairs programmes. Professor Stewart Purvis, former content and standards partner at Ofcom and ITN Chief Executive watches the proceedings in parliament and discusses Ofcom regulations and their adherence.

"This distinction they're making between news and current affairs is not a genuine one. It is almost a device to enable politicians to present programmes."

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Henry Hill is the deputy editor of the Conservative Home website. He discusses the growing trend of partisan news channels, regulation, funding models, impartiality, political interviews and Conservative attitudes to the BBC and BBC reform.

“If support for the BBC on the right collapses, whether you think that that collapse is justified or not, whether you think the criticisms are justified or not, it then becomes regardless of that, very difficult to justify having a corporation and a broadcaster with all of those privileges. So, it's really important for those of us on the right who support the BBC to try and get Conservatives to engage seriously with the question of ‘okay, this is a really important principle, whatever our criticism of the BBC, what do what do we want it to look like?’.”

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