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46 Britain The Economist April 25th 2020
2 that ministers can provide updates. Eight
out of ten people say they are getting their Breaking the news
news on covid-19 from the bbc, making it Broadcasters’ audiences, 2019 Public-service broadcasters Private broadcasters
by far the most popular source. And its in-
fluence will only grow as a covid-related Political attitudes of audience Populist tendencies of audience
collapse in advertising hobbles commer- ← Left-leaning Right-leaning → ← Less populist More populist →
cial news outlets.
Amid the struggle against the virus, the Britain BBC ITV Britain BBC ITV
corporation has slipped into something Sky Sky
like wartime rules. Its website carries arti-
cles that gently reinforce public-health Italy Rai Sky TG24 Mediaset Italy Rai
messages, such as an interview with a Sky TG24 Mediaset
chastened 25-year-old entitled: “I thought
because I was young it wouldn’t affect me.” France FT & RF TF1 France FT & RF TF1
(It very much did, he reveals.) Unofficial
BFM BFM
rules of engagement with interviewees
have subtly loosened, to give subjects more Germany ARD ZDF Germany
breathing space. And there is a faint un- DRadio RTL n-tv RTL
ARD ZDF DLF n-tv
willingness to dwell on official missteps, of
Source: Reuters Institute, University of Oxford
which there have been plenty. “The bbc
does have a responsibility to provide what
the nation needs,” says one senior journal- diences usually lean left (see chart). sality is that young people are switching
ist. “It needs to know what’s being done However, the question of bias has be- off. Whereas over-65s watch nearly six
about testing [for covid-19]. It doesn’t need come harder to navigate. Digital technol- hours of live tv a day, the same as a decade
a great bust-up about what’s gone wrong in ogy has exposed audiences to new outlets ago, viewing among 16- to 24-year-olds has
the recent past.” It is a fine balance, but “the like YouTube that are not required to follow fallen by half, to just 85 minutes. Though
bosses are keen that we come out of this impartiality rules. Unregulated online they consume about four-and-a-half hours
with the sense that we looked after the in- ranters should make the bbclook unbiased of video daily, the same as the average
terest of the nation, not just our journalis- by comparison. But there is a danger that Briton, an explosion in new ways to watch
tic values.” viewers draw the opposite conclusion: that has pulled them away from broadcast tv.
This is uncomfortable. Yet the crisis has everyone has a bias, and the bbc is merely More than half of households subscribe to
shown how a public broadcaster can help concealing its own. In 2005 Michael Grade, a streaming service like Netflix, a figure
squash false stories. Mr Knight acknowl- the bbc’s then-chairman, predicted that that is rising under lockdown (see Business
edges the bbc’s role as “a bulwark against “in the context of this new world of opin- section). Those aged 16-24 spend more
fake news”. Countries with public-service ionated, value-laden broadcasting, the bbc time on YouTube than live tv, according to
media have more hard news and better-in- [could] be perceived not as fundamentally Ofcom, the regulator. If that is worrying for
formed populations than those without, different from other providers, but as fun- bbc executives, the next generation should
according to a review of evidence by the damentally the same.” terrify them. Children aged 12-15 are more
Reuters Institute at the University of Ox- likely to have heard of Netflix than the bbc.
ford. Whereas 29% of Americans report Universal studios? The risk to the bbc, like other old media
seeing misleading news on covid-19, only At the same time, the old left-right divide companies, is that its “mode of delivery or
18% of Britons do. “I searched Netflix to see has been superseded by a cultural one that style of content gets stuck with existing au-
what public information it’s giving people is harder for the bbc to bridge. Consider diences and it fails to attract the young”,
during the crisis. Still searching…”, tweeted Brexit, the fiercest battle in this new cul- says Mark Thompson, who ran the corpora-
Nick Robinson, a “Today” presenter. ture war. Britain voted to Leave by 52% to tion from 2004 to 2012 and is now chief ex-
Yet even if the virus has averted a 48%. But working-age graduates—ie, the ecutive of the New York Times. “It’s a chal-
“whacking”, the bbc should worry about a bbc’s recruitment pool—backed Remain by lenge for the New York Times, The
slower-burning problem. The licence fee, two to one. In London they backed it by four Economist, all of us—but it’s existential for
in effect a near-universal tax, has endured to one. Mr Dowden, the culture secretary, the bbc because its funding is predicated
on the basis that the corporation’s output is has warned the broadcaster it must not on its ability to appeal to everyone, young
consumed near-universally too. As Lord project a “narrow, urban outlook”. It has as well as old,” he explains.
Hall put it recently: “If you are paid for by beefed up its presence outside the capital, The widening gulf between older, richer
everybody then you’ve got to give some- with a big base in Salford, in north-west audiences who spend half their waking
thing to everyone.” But the bbc is finding England, and is hiring more non-graduate hours consuming bbc content, and youn-
that harder to do, for two reasons. apprentices. ger, poorer ones who seldom tune in, raises
The first concerns the alleged bias in its But the Reuters study found that on a the question of whether it is fair that every
output. The corporation is either “stacked “populism” spectrum, the bbc’s audience household pays the same. One alternative
full of right-wingers” (as a Guardian colum- leant anti-populist. It struggles to reach the would be to replace the flat fee with a pro-
nist complained) or so lefty that even its less-educated, who are 20% less likely than gressive tax. In 2013 Finland swapped its li-
“Sherlock” detective drama contains anti- graduates to tune in to the bbc and little cence fee of €252 ($275) per household for a
Tory messages (as claimed by the Daily more than half as likely to consume its con- tax of between zero and €140 per adult. The
Mail). Yet polling by the Reuters Institute tent online. “In our sensibilities, in our del- bbc dislikes this idea, fearing the erosion
finds that the bbc reaches an audience that icacies of speech, we are super-serving up- of its independence under the constant
is broadly in the middle of the political per-middle-class people,” admits one threat of tax cuts. But the licence fee itself
spectrum. This contrasts with its main well-known journalist. “The cultural battle has hardly been immune to political inter-
commercial rivals, itv and Sky, whose isn’t made up by Dominic Cummings [the ference, rising steeply under Labour in
viewers lean to the right, and with public prime minister’s adviser]. It’s real.” 1997-2010 before falling hard under the To-
broadcasters in other countries, whose au- The second threat to the bbc’s univer- ries more recently. 1
