Readers may recall that last autumn the BBC Trust announced an audience consultation regarding its news and current affairs content.
The results of that consultation have now been published and can be viewed here.
“We carried out a public consultation at the end of 2013 and received over 9,000 responses from licence fee payers. We also commissioned qualitative and quantitative audience research to inform our thinking for the review. We received a number of responses from the industry and other stakeholder organisations and have spoken to a number of the other news providers in the UK. We also interviewed many of the BBC’seditors, commissioners and most senior journalists. This evidence, alongside performance monitoring and financial analysis, has given us a clear picture of the current state of the BBC’s network journalism as well as identifying areas where it can develop.”
In 2012/13 there were over 25 million licence fee payers in the UK. A sample size of 9,000 random participants in this consultation might therefore appear to many to be too small to produce a reliable “clear picture of the current state of the BBC’s network journalism”.
Background material to the review – including a statement from ‘Jews for Justice for Palestinians’ – can be seen here.
The BBC’s own reporting on the review can be read here and a slightly different perspective can be seen here.
