It's taken nearly a year, but the BBC Trust has opined on a charge from TalkSPORT that BBC Radio 5Live is not doing enough news. The requirement, of 75% "news", comes from the Trust, and is restated, in gentle terms, in 5Live's "service licence" re-issued this month - "BBC Radio Five Live should ensure that news represents three quarters of output each year".
The TalkSPORT claim was that at least 13% of the station's output consisted of "entertainment programming, such as interviews with television personalities, trivia, and listeners' humorous anecdotes." By its analysis, 37% of 5Live's schedule could be counted as "sports programming". Unsaid, but explicit, the charge was that, however you do the maths, banter, fun, jokes, etc, are TalkSPORT prerogatives, and the BBC shouldn't count them as "news".
The Trust's verdict: OK - for now. Clearly the old way of counting simply said "Is this a news programme or a sports programme ?", which apparently gets 5Live to 75%. But, says the Trust, the complaint had raised
"significant and valid questions about what constitutes news on 5 Live" and said a "more nuanced method of monitoring the proportion of news output" was needed. It could be that 5Live Controller Adrian Van Klaveren will have to hire more bean-counters in Salford to fend off Moz Dee.
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