BBC Trust

Summary

This report presents the findings of our service review looking at radio stations in the BBC nations, news and current affairs made in and for each nation on television and online and Gaelic television channel BBC ALBA.

Our review, announced in November 2015, considered:

• How well does the BBC serve audiences with radio, news and current affairs programmes made specifically for audiences in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales?
• How well are these programmes performing against commitments set out their services licences?
• Are these services well-positioned to deliver their service licence commitments in the future as viewing and listening patterns change and technology evolves?
• Should the service licences be changed to update existing commitments or add new ones?

We carried out a public consultation between November 2015 and January 2016 and received 1591 responses from licence fee payers. In addition, we received a number of responses from industry and other stakeholder organisations. We also commissioned quantitative and qualitative audience research to inform our thinking for the review and we interviewed members of BBC nations’ staff. This evidence, alongside performance monitoring and financial analysis, has given us a clear picture of these services. The review has found that BBC services in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales are vital to audiences in providing news and other core public service programming. Research carried out by the Trust found that audience expectations of BBC nations’ services are high and that, while they mostly rate its programming highly, occasionally it falls short of expectations. The Trust has therefore made the following recommendations for the BBC to address as a result of this review:

• Online offer - The challenge of adapting to give more and varied BBC content online is accepted by the BBC and the Trust would like to see clear plans to address it across the nations when licence fee funding for the next few years is finalised.
• News and current affairs hours - Each nations’ radio station has consistently outperformed its commitment for hours of news and current affairs output so the Trust has increased the level of these conditions to reflect more recent levels.
• Audience expectations of BBC news - Audience perceptions of BBC news are very strong overall but the evidence gathered for this review shows that audiences have extremely high expectations of the BBC and these are not currently being met.
  - In Scotland the challenge is particularly acute with many audience perceptions of news output are lower than average and we heard a very critical opinion from some members of the audience. The BBC is already making some programming changes and it will be important to make sure the impact of these is tracked.
  - In Northern Ireland audiences show a desire for more coverage of a broader range of subjects and a wider range of voices to keep pace with changes in society. Again BBC Northern Ireland is aware of this challenge and is working to address it.
  - In Wales the BBC will need to find ways to ensure audiences are kept informed about Welsh matters, and that their expectations in areas such as Welsh political coverage and holding decision-makers to account are fully met.
  - Across all nations, research showed us that the BBC’s ability to hold decision-makers to account does not meet expectations. This was also highlighted to us in the review of BBC local news services in England. We recommend that the BBC seeks to understand how it can meet audience expectations better across all services.
• Indigenous minority language output - The BBC provides language programming on BBC Radio Cymru, BBC Radio nan Gàidheal and BBC ALBA, as well as on BBC Northern Ireland services. Once BBC funding for the next licence fee period is finalised, the Trust recommends that the BBC agrees how its indigenous minority language services should evolve in the future.

A summary of our findings, together with the full report and the supporting evidence for this review, can be found below.

Summary report

Full report

Public consultation report

Qualitative audience research report

Quantitative audience research report

Responses from organisations

Responses from Audience Councils

Equality Analysis