Ofcom To Examine Whether BBC Content Distinct From Newspapers
Ofcom is to examine whether the BBC’s online content is sufficiently distinct from newspapers as part of a review into the corporation’s news and current affairs output, the regulator announced this week.
Announcing the terms of reference for the review, Ofcom said “distinctiveness” lay at the core of the BBC Charter and Agreement and that the BBC should be making programmes and services that were “substantially different” from comparable broadcasters and providers.
Ofcom said it will carry out research to discover whether the BBC’s news, celebrity and entertainment stories are sufficiently distinct from commercial providers and the regulator will also look at how the BBC sources and attributes content from third party.
Following publication of the Cairncross review Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright wrote to Ofcom to look at the review’s recommendation to assess whether or not BBC News Online was diverting traffic away from commercial publishers and “identify any new concerns that deserve attention.”
News Media Association chairman David Dinsmore said last year that the BBC was directly challenging core tabloid journalism by “chasing online traffic by publishing popular news content which bares no resemblance to the BBC’s charter commitments.”
“Vitally, by offering all of this for free, they are reducing the leverage of commercial publishers to challenge the platforms to offer a fair value for our content,” Mr Dinsmore told Press Gazette’s Digital Journalism Summit in October.
This week, Ofcom said its review would look at the range and depth of analysis in its news and current affairs, across all platforms, and how this compares with other UK news providers.
Research will be carried out to map the role of its online news provision and Ofcom will examine the wider context within which BBC news online operates, and how the BBC differentiates its content from that of other providers, including newspapers.
Ofcom said: “We will use a variety of research and analytic techniques to understand how different stories covered by the BBC online – from reporting of major news events to celebrity and entertainment news – are accessed by users. We will look at people’s ‘news journey’ – how, and how easily, they navigate within the BBC’s news website, and between it and other news sites.
“We will consider how the BBC works with other news providers when sourcing or attributing their stories online. We will also look at whether people who use BBC online believe it has a distinctive format, mix of content, and depth of information.”