Downhill

The defeatist attitude of an ITN-trained management at BBC News in April 2023 effectively closed down the BBC News channel in favour of a "World News" offering absolutely focused on an American audience. 

At the time of the 'merger', BBC Sport Today became BBC Sportsday.  Last year "Sportsday" branding was dropped, in favour of shorter BBC Sport bulletins. At the time of the merger, BBC News in the UK was reaching 9.7m a month. The BBC is no longer obliged to disclose weekly reach in the UK; Ofcom's latest annual survey suggests it's reaching 31% of all adults in the UK over 16 each week. 

It's clear that the current BBC Sport management have made a choice between live sport coverage and 'news', so, as a result of today's cuts, there'll be almost nothing 'Made in Manchester' for the BBC News channel, and the downward spiral of the reputation of the BBC News channel in the UK, ceding ground to GB News, will continue. 

Not a lone voice

Finally, someone on my side. The Social Market Foundation, sponsored by 38 Degrees, says the licence fee should be replaced by a levy on home broadband connections, which it calculates at £11 a month.  They haven't quite spotted that they need a combo levy, cos more and more people are watching 'tv' on smartphones, and 'mirroring' the output on larger screens. 

A combination of levies on broadbands, mobile and streamers is the best replacement for a tv licence, as it's at least related to the means of consumption, and can be 'progressive', given that people pay for more bandwith for more detailed pictures and ever-faster streaming... 

Time for tv

Leading Radio 4 on-demand show In Our Time is now recorded on screen for delivery on iPlayer. Wood panelling and books form the background. Host Misha Glenny has a short-sleeved t-shirt, and appears to be wearing shorts.  He seems to read the introduction from autocue.   In America, the video version is now available as part of the BBC Select subscription offering. 

Peaky

John Lucius MacAndrew appeared on Newswatch this week to explain the move of Friday's edition of Newsnight - 'a real opportunity to bring the programme to new audiences'. 

The first 7pm slot attracted 500k viewers.  It boasted Neil Kinnock, Rory Stewart, Alva Ray of the New Statesman, and an extended interview with Kemi Badenoch.  On YouTube, Newsnight is cut up into bitesize chunks under the banner BBC Politics, with added big capital letters. The Badenoch interview has so far achieved 19k views.  Maybe it will build - Paxman v Russell Brand, from 12 years ago, has clocked up 13 million views. 

Meanwhile Strictly launched with an average of 5.3m viewers, and a healthy 50% share (up from 42% in 2025) 

2025 - 5.4m

2024 - 5.4m

2023 - 6.2m

2022 - 6.8m

2021 - 7.0m

2020 - 8.6m

Eyeballs

The Newsnight team have invested a lot in promoting the 7pm Friday slot, including a three minute sizzle reel at the end of last night's show.  But phrases like "Prime time" and "Peak time" are dangerous hostages to fortune, and people will be chasing the overnight figures for a quick judgement. 

Channel 4 News has been the Royal Television Society's news programme of the year for the past three years.  Yet it's coy about viewing figures.  In the networks annual report, it talks about "an 8% linear growth in 2025", without hinting at a baseline.   The same report baffles this reader with very big numbers for social media, without giving real confidence that the figures are better or worse than other similar size operations - make sense of this, if you can...  

"In 2025, annual digital views reached 2.1 billion, up 12% year on year, supported by a global following of 16 million across platforms. 

"Social platforms delivered over 700,000 UK views a day from 13-34-year-olds, alongside 3 million TikTok followers and 6 million on Meta. Original vodcasts averaged 100,000 views, with TrumpWorld topping Spotify’s UK podcast charts. 

"Channel 4 News is powered by an always-on, fully integrated digital newsroom, designed to reach younger audiences on the platforms they use most, while remaining fully Ofcomcompliant. The result is nearly 900 million minutes watched annually. 

"New editorial products – including FourNow, FourSight, and Substack – deepened engagement with loyal audiences, while YouTube continued to scale, attracting 4 million subscribers and averaging 20 million monthly views."

Newsnight is already in similar digital lime-washing; expect more soon.

Linear readings

Digital triumphs aside, Mr Jackson, BBC1's coverage of this year's Last Night of the Proms drew in 2.2m (25.2% share), peaking with 2.8m. That's down on 2025's 2.9m (28.7%) and 3.5m peak. 

BBC2's coverage of the first half of the concert averaged 930k viewers (10.2%). That's a tad down on 2025's 1m (9.7%)

Alice off

BBC Corporate Affairs supremo Alice Macandrew is leaving, almost exactly on her four-year anniversary in post, with no news on her destination.  

Alice, 54 (Mary Erskine School and MA History at Cambridge University, probably Downing College) is a member of the PR Hall of Fame. She had spells at Broadcast magazine, the FT Newsletter and Euromoney, before partnering at Finsbury PR. There she worked with James Murdoch, and eventually joined Newscorp. She departed in the aftermath of phone-hacking charges (Nick Davies said she had a half-hour shouting match with Rebekah Brooks), to re-emerge at Sky in 2012. Three years on, and she moved to Thomas Cook, only to leave after an 'horrific' time as the company failed.  She came to the BBC from Primark. 

Soon after joining, she was a player in the resolution of Gary Lineker's suspension for social media activities. She's tried to smooth paths to the UK Jewish and Palestinian-supporting communities. 

In a Thomas Cook house mag of 2018 she shared a 'fun fact': "I am 100% Celt - 50% Scottish 50% Irish, no English blood in me, but I don't sound it until I drink. The more gin I drink, the more Scottish I become."

America for the Americans

All those in BBC News facing an unwonted exit might brighten at the job ad for a Supervising Editor, Digital - Breaking News and Live, based in either Washington or Los Angeles. 

But wait: "This is a local hire position and eligible candidates must be able to live and work in the US (US citizenship, Green Card or work authorisation). Previous applicants need not apply."

"At least 10 years experience in a daily digital news operation, with significant news editing experience and an in-depth knowledge of US and Canadian affairs"

"PROPOSED SALARY RANGE: $140,000 – $160,000" 

Size matters

Might one be mildly surprised that the BBC has suddenly found enough space in its yet-to-be-occupied Tea Factory in Digbeth for Birmingham City University to lease space to run courses in media, journalism, content creation, production and broadcast technology ?

The design was set with planning permission granted in March 2023, way after Covid. Occupancy was then expected in 2026.  In December 2023, opening date was moved to 2027.  Now this:

"Subject to final planning and landlord’s approvals, BCU will lease space within the Tea Factory and create state-of-the-art training facilities built to BBC specifications. These will include sector leading hi-tech studios, workshops, teaching rooms and breakout areas."

Is there something genetic in the ambition of the BBC's Nations & Regions, to build too big ?  Large areas of Pacific Quay are empty; the Cardiff bus station-site for BBC Wales/Cymru is less penetrable. The BBC in Northern Ireland has had its transformation ambitions curtailed to a refurb, with the recent announcement of a studio/event space in the new Belfast Stories development, to come on stream in 2030.

Trend ?

All Perspectives, sole tv product GB News,  reached 3,275,000 viewers in August, according to BARB. That's down from 3,597,000 in July,  and down from 3,979,000 in August 2025.