Essay politics of the media- UXS-2216-0 PDF

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Essay politics of the media- UXS-2216-0 Hannah Ashworth- 500534406 Ofcom annual report of the BBC The policy document that I will be reviewing is Ofcom’s annual report of the BBC. I will be reviewing this document as Ofcom and the BBC have a strong connection, therefore, I believe there will be a lot of historical context surrounding the two. In previous years the BBC has been self-regulatory but as of 2018, Ofcom has taken over to write the annual report of the BBC. i will be comparing different views on the changeof the BBC no longer being self regulated. While also looking at the response that the BBC have had with this change.

To analyse this media policy document, we need to look at its historical development. As this form of regulation of the BBC is new, many academics and journalists have written about the change from being self-regulatory to Ofcom now regulating the BBC. some agreeing with it and some disagreeing. One popular thought between academics is, if the bbc is no longer self regulated, will its quality lessen. Or will having an external regulator help the BBC to become more popular, with new views helping the BBC appeal to a new audience. One article in the Guardian reported on this saying that the BBC should no longer be self-regulated, “David  Clementi, the former chairman of Virgin Money...The BBC Trust model is flawed. It conflates governance and regulatory functions within the trust.” (Martinson & Sweney, 2016). To emphasise this, under the eight principles of Public Service broadcasting and the royal charter, the government can’t interfere or work alongside the public service broadcaster. Therefore, in terms of the historical context of the BBC, it can be seen why some academics were against the BBC being self-regulatory with lots of conflicting opinions whether it should be self-regulated or not. To contrast, a blog was written by ‘London School of Economics and Political Science’ (LSE) stating, “it is less clear that Ofcom will be able to ensure the BBC meets its public service obligations” (anon, LSE, 2016) meaning that they were unsure if Ofcom would have the

facilities, information and ability to regulate the public side of the BBC, fearing weather they would be more concerned about statistics rather than content that is being given to the public and therefore not keeping to the BBC’s value to inform, educate and entertain. Moreover, the BBC responds to ‘Ofcom’s annual report of the BBC’ every year which are available to the public. I believe that as time goes on the public become more sceptical of the BBC in terms of whether they are influenced by the government or not, this could be because The BBC is a Public service Broadcaster and therefore the public are skeptical as to wether the BBC works alongside the government, as it isi one if the most popular news providers in the UK . In addition to this, some of BBC’s statistics dropped from 2018 to 2019 which can be seen when comparing the two reports. Mostly a drop in audience who are in the 16-34 age bracket, the weekly BBC screen time dropping from 60% to 56%. This has led some academics to question whether the change in regulation has affected the content. As stated above by LSE, whether Ofcom have the public interest at heart as public service broadcasting needs to, “make good programmes popular and popular programmes good” (Tracey 1998).

Measuring the impact of the document

The document had an impact on the BBC as they have to take the criticism from Ofcom and use it to change the BBC but also the impact can be seen less recently as Ofcom haven't been regulating BBC for long. But in terms of impact, the BBC changed different issues which have been brought up by Ofcom. In a response to Ofcom the BBC stated that Ofcom had brought up interesting points that were valid, but the BBC saw some more important pressing issues, “ While we warmly welcome Ofcom’s proposals ...this is not the biggest problem that needs fixing to secure the future of PSB.” (ofcom, 2018) the BBC suggesting that “ Ofcom recommends urgent legislative change to bridge the regulatory faultline created between linear and on-demand PSB TV content” ( ofcom, 2018p.2)In order to change the ‘on-demand’ services of the BBC,

changing the access. Therefore, above, we can see Ofcom's annual report of the BBC does impact the BBC as they read the report and suggest other pressing matters to Ofcom, which shows the two working hand in hand to provide entertainment etc to the standards of the Royal charter. This shows the impacts that the document has on the BBC as they see what needs to be changed and consider the publics need too. In addition to this, in BBC’s response to the annual report, it states once again, “We warmly welcome Ofcom’s proposed changes to the existing linear EPG code, but these do not go far enough. “( ofcom, 2018p.4). This could show that ofcom might not pick at the BBC as fine as they should, looking less at the public’s needs and more at the BBC content. In this response to the document ‘Ofcom annual report of the BBC’ the BBC includes much of what Ofcom have missed out, and in responding to Ofcom the BBC are analysing their content in more detail as they raise many points which Ofcom have not raised. Moreover, in BBC’s response the words, “The need to deliver citizen benefit” (ofcom, 2018p.5) which could show that the document has impacted the BBC as it is now taking public interest into more consideration than before, as they want to tailor the content to deliver to the citizens to keep people loyal to the BBC, and to ensure that quality content is delivered by the BBC, making good content to be popular. This shows that although Ofcom has not been regulating the BBC for long, it has made a light impact in terms of the BBC being more aware of their content and the issues in the PSB.

Evaluating the degree to which it has succeeded

In terms of long term success, we can not be certain that Ofcom’s annual report of the BBC has succeeded, but we can see that it has succeeded in terms of regulating the BBC. This is because both the BBC and Ofcom write an annual report on the BBC, and then the BBC write a response to what Ofcom have pointed out that the BBC needs to change. In a BBC article from 2019 by Clare summer she notes all the issues that have been brought up by Ofcom and writes a report about how they will change in accordance to Ofcom’s criticism.

Moreover, the annual reports have also succeeded in terms of the BBC tailoring their content to fit more of the UK population, creating more diversity in programmes etc. The article stating “increase in the proportion of people from Asian backgrounds that feel the BBC has a good range of programmes and content that includes people like them” (BBC, Sumner, 2019). This shows that the reports have succeeded in some ways, thus far, following the royal charter as Ofcom are focusing on the public as well as the statistics of the BBC’s success. In conclusion, this media policy document, “Ofcom’s annual report of the BBC” has had a great effect on the public and on the BBC as they have become more critical of the content that they are delivering and with and external regulator they are abiding by the Royal Charter and have no interference from the government, which relates back to the eight principles of public service broadcasting. Moreover, this gives the BBC more opportunity to receive more statistics about the success of their content. I believe that although there are mixed views from academics about the regulation of the BBC, having an external regulator leaves less room for bias and therefore uses more statistics and facts to tailor content to the public, becoming more diverse.

Bibliography BBC. 2021. [online]. BBC Annual Report: At a glance - BBC News. Accessed 14/01/2021. BBC. 2021. [online]https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/reports/annualreport/2018-19.pdf. Accessed 14/01/2021. Cave. Collins. Crowther, 2004. Telecommunications policy. [E-JOURNAL]. Volume 28. Issues 3–4. available at: R  egulating the BBC - ScienceDirect. Accessed 15/01/2021. London School of economics and political science. 2021. [online]. Is the BBC safe in Ofcom's hands? | Media@LSE. Accessed 14/01/2021 Martinson & Sweney 2021.The Guardian [online]. R  eport urges end to 94 years of BBC self-regulation | BBC | The Guardian. Accessed 14/01/2021. Ofcom. 2021. [online]. BBC.pdf (ofcom.org.uk). Accessed 14/01/2021.

Ofcom. 2021. [online]. Ofcom’s Annual Report on the BBC 2019/20. Accessed 14/01/2021. Sumner, Clare. BBC. 2021. [online]. BBC Blogs - About the BBC - A look at Ofcom's annual report of the BBC. Accessed 14/01.2021....