Counting the hours

Just as BSkyB has a pop at the BBC for not being dull enough, the UTV brains behind Talksport are also having a go, at Radio Five Live for not being newsy enough. (Spotted by Tim in Radio Today)

They've looked at the BBC's SoPPs (Statements of Programme Policy), which states that Five Live's content should be "c75% news coverage". As part of the annual report in 2008/9, Five Live admitted to missing that target by 2%. But whoever did the counting for UTV reckons the miss is much bigger - they argue that if you define news as "information or analysis related to recent or ongoing current affairs, events or issues", the figure delivered is closer to 45%. Add travel news and weather, then it goes up to 48%; if you include sports bulletins and updates (not commentary) as "news" then it's 56%. The UTV analysis says 13% of output consists of entertainment programming, such as interviews with television personalities, trivia, and listeners' humorous anecdotes. If you allow that to be considered "news", we're up to 69%.

Then, in a leap that suggests either I don't understand maths, or there's an error in the report, UTV says 37% of the output consists of sport programming - 7% of that is "live sports coverage", and the rest is "sporting analysis, discussion, phone-ins and comedy".

That makes a total of 106%. Is that right, Moz ? (I suspect Moz Dee has had a hand in this exercise, because he used to be on the commissioning team at Five Live, which is responsible for the balance...).

I think Controller Van Klaveren can easily biff most of the charge. In the bureaucratic tangleweed of the Beeb, his actions are also constrained by a service licence. In it, he's charged with "Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence - BBC Radio Five Live should contribute to this purpose amongst its audience by reflecting significant developments in the arts, and by reporting and reflecting on the theatre, film, music, art, books, television and radio". i.e - the puffs for books, tv and films that pepper the daytime output. So that's ok and counts as news. So do the banter, emails, trivia, etc, because the station's supposed to "entertain and involve" as well as "inform".

But if the charge of 37% sports programming is true, he may have a problem. The question is - how long has UTV been keeping the stopwatch going ? The target of 75% is measured across a year, and the network has to report figures internally every three months.