Is the Beeb's science coverage one sided?

There is certainly enough doubt for the BBC Trust to announce an investigation.Starting this spring,the trust will be carrying out an impartiality test.

One programme that may have triggered the move was David Attenborough's How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth? which coincided with the Copenhagen climate meeting and was criticised as being one sided.

Richard Tait, BBC Trustee and Chair of the Trust's Editorial Standards Committee (ESC), said:

Science is an area of great importance to licence fee payers, which provokes strong reaction and covers some of the most sensitive editorial issues the BBC faces. Heated debate in recent years around topics like climate change, GM crops and the MMR vaccine reflects this, and BBC reporting has to steer a course through these controversial issues while remaining impartial.

The trust will report in 2011

BBC radio on the road to cost reductions but some gaps remain

More trouble for the BBC this afternoon as the National Audit office is blocked from gaining information on how much its radio presenters are paid.

According to Ft.com

The NAO report found a great disparity between the costs of BBC and commercial radio programme-making, and said the publicly funded broadcaster could do more to reduce its in its £462m total radio budget

.but

it added that it could not make a full study of the situation because of the demands of the BBC Trust, the corporation’s governing body which actually commissioned the report.

The report ,commissioned by the BBC Trust,found that

BBC Nations and Network radio achieved savings of £11.7 million by 2007-08 against a target of £11.6 million

but recommended that it should

explore with commercial radio stations how they might establish benchmarking arrangements to identify where and how savings can be made

Tim Burr, Comptroller and Auditor General, said:

“The BBC has already achieved savings in radio production across its Network and Nations radio services and has plans in place to make further savings. But the BBC needs a better understanding of why the cost of producing similar programmes on its different radio stations varies so widely.”

Trust rejects Beebs intrusion into local journalism

So perhaps not surprsingly in the current media climate the BBC Trust has rejected the corportaions attempts to go head to head with the local media.

This from the report

Whilst local video has the potential to deliver some public value it does not represent the most efficient use of licence fee funds, especially given access issues for non-broadband users and limited reach to key audience groups. We also recognise the negative market impact that could result from expansion of BBC online news provision at a local level at a time when commercial providers face structural and cyclical pressures. Conversely, that potential strain on local news provision has led in some cases to a reduction in editorial staff in the local press and commercial radio sector and could be used by some to justify a public intervention in the market.

There were always going to be arguments on both sides of the fence but I come down on the side of the Trust's decision given the current pressures in the local media,it was always going to be an unacceptable use of license fee resources.

However for the longer term it is important that the BBC does not abandon its cross pollinisation policy and shared technology

BBC adds more to the economy than it collects says report

This morning's FT looks ahead to a report from the BBC Trust which will claim

that it adds £6.5bn to the value of the economy, about twice the amount it collects in licence fee payments

The report goes onto say that

The figures will be quoted by Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the Trust, when he gives a speech to an EU conference tonight on the administration of public-service broadcasting (PSB).

The report by PCW carries some warnings though.

its powerful position in radio and ability to dictate the choice of media technologies may have a negative impact in the future.

and that the

broadcaster does not damage commercial radio by exploiting its powerful market position or by adopting particular technologies that force independent media companies to follow suit.

Good but could do better as bbc.co.uk overspends

The BBC trust has today reported on its review of BBC.co.uk.

You can read the executive summary Here but here are the main points

1.It is an excellent service that is highly valued by users

2.Improvements to management's control of the service are needed.

3.The trustwill not approve new investments until we have considered their likely public value and approved proposals for improved management control.

The trust's main critisism is that the Beeb has simply overspent on the service.Budegted to spend £81m it ended up with a bill for £110 with the blame laid at the devolved nature of the management structure.

In terms of the service it provides the report highlights areas for improvement.

1.More needs to be done to ensure that all parts of bbc.co.uk are distinctive

2.Improvements are needed in internal search and navigation

3.Linking to external sites needs to be more effective

4. but more can be done to meet the public's growing expectation of open dialogue.

The last point is interesting.Is the trust saying the service should be more of a two way venture.If so then I applaud them.

What the media commentators are saying

Jane Martinson at the Guardian takes a look at the BBC Trust and asks

Was it in the charter that the BBC Trust should be run like a bus service? We wait all year for a review and now there are three arriving at once.

adding

No organisation would choose to spend its first year dealing with a royal row and an internal revolt over restructuring that looked nastier than any in its 81-year history. So pity the poor Trust employees, who are currently dealing with the fruit of all those detailed analytical reviews started in earlier, halcyon days.

In the same paper with the Olympics fast aproaching,Phil Harding asks

As 20,000 journalists get ready for the Beijing Olympics, just how much freedom will they have to report what is happening on and off the track?

and reminds us

In January 2007 the Chinese Foreign Ministry announced that accredited foreign journalists would be free to travel in China, outside Tibet and the Muslim western region of Xinjiang, without official permission. In practice, this has only partly happened. In the last fortnight access for the foreign media to the disaster areas of the Sichuan earthquake has been relatively unrestricted. But during the Tibet disturbances in March more than 40 journalists were turned away from covering protests in neighbouring regions, and some were detained

Staying with the subject of China Matthew Norman in the Independent

can't recall,can't recall ,IN ALL the years of observing British newspapers, a change of heart as startling and touching as the one at The Times, which has executed a quite dizzying volte-face on the vexing issue of China.

According to Donald Trelford in the Independent

Newspapers are a unique kind of business, someone ventured over dinner the other night: "In no other business do the owners and managers have no control over the product."

The paper has a feature on BBC Journalist Matt Frei who for

For six years has been attending White House press conferences, as the BBC's Washington correspondent and more recently as the face of BBC World News America. And never once has he been invited to ask a question of George W Bush.

In Praise of BBC 4

This morning's Telegraph carries an interview with Sir Michael Lyons head of the BBC Trust in which he says that the BBC needs to save around £2b between 2007-13

One of the options is the closure of BBC 4 although the paper says that

While closure of an entire channel is not thought to be on Mr Thompson's list, Sir Michael did not rule it out as an option. "Have we ruled out radical changes? No, we haven't," he said. "It is about what you can afford to do with the money you've got."

Well I hope that someone is listening at the corporation.BBC 4 has put together some excellent programming since it has been on air and personally it is one of the channels that I most watch although generally by recording on Sky Plus.Recently it has carried an excellent couple of documentaries presented by the authopr Ian Rankin as well as excellent drama and documentaries.It would be a shame if the channel falls to the cost exercises.Surely there are other savings from duplicated services that the Beeb could find instead.

Lyons accepts a battle for future funding

This morning's FT carries the first newspaper interview with Sir Michael Lyons,the chairman of the BBC Trust since his appointment three months ago.

He has indicated that he will"not blindly"defend the license fee when it comes up for renewal.Moreover whilst accepting that only a secure funding base enables the BBC to plan for the future,he recognises that in a fragmented market,the arguments for the" privelege" of the fee will become more difficult.

Talking of the position of the Trust he says

“The BBC has been given more independence at the price of the trust being more demanding than the previous governors."