UK

Expert assessment: centralisation of public service media news production

It is true that the BBC has become increasingly centralised, and this is one of the more controversial and debated topics regarding the ongoing restructuring of the BBC system. The centralisation of the BBC over the past decade has led to the merging of newsrooms for broadcasting and online as well as the news-production process for BBC domestic and BBC Worldservice. As part of this process, as the statement above correctly notes, the previously independent BBC English Regions was merged with BBC News in 2009. This has sparked much controversy over what has been perceived as the BBC's prioritising market efficiency over diverse and creative local and regional programming. The new centralised structure has also been criticised for pushing journalists to work across numerous outlets, which has come at the cost of quality and nuanced news reporting.

The BBC's centralisation has been driven by media convergence and the demands of new technologies, to which the BBC has responded by investing heavily into its online services. As part of this process, the BBC over the past decade has introduced rationalised and market-led news production and scheduling.103 This, as noted, has led to the integration news production services throughout the BBC system, including the merging of the BBC English Regions with the BBC News division in 2009.104 Under the new structure, the BBC English Regions are responsible for all non-networked television, text and radio output in England and the BBC's English Regions websites. The English Regions produce several daily regional news programs and provide entertainment news for all of England via 44 BBC Local websites. Teams of journalists are stationed at each of the 12 BBC English Regions, providing the news content for both the BBC Local websites and the News Interactive site. Each regional office has a regional director who reports to the Controller English Regions based in Birmingham.105

As mentioned, the centralisation process has been highly controversial. Critics have said the BBC is remodeling itself after big American "news factories" like NBC or CNN at the expense of diverse, pluralistic public interest programming.106 There has also been some concerns about the increased London-centric approach to news programming. This is being partly addressed by the upcoming move of parts of the BBC to its newly built production center "MediaCity" in Salford, close to Manchester.

It should also be noted that the BBC is not the only public service broadcaster within the UK. All terrestrial channels operate under public service obligations and have their own news production teams. Channel 4, while commercially funded, is legally a public service broadcaster (and not shareholder owned), and it airs its own news broadcasts, which are supplied by Independent Television News (ITN). ITV, meanwhile, as a terrestrial channel, also comes under public service obligations, despite its fully commercial status, and produces its own news broadcasts.

102 See "Criticism 8" in "Criticisms and answers formulated on the subject of the proposed media act examined in a European context," Ministry of Public Administration and Justice, December 20, 2010, available at: http://www.kormany.hu/en/ministry-of-public-administration-and-justice/news/criticisms-and-answers-formulated-on-the-subject-of-the-proposed-media-act-examined-in-a-european-context. 103 See for example Georgina Born's study on the BBC: Uncertain Vision: Birt, Dyke and the Reinvention of the BBC. London: Secker & Warburg, 2004. 104 "BBC promotes role of national and regional broadcasting in leadership restructuring," BBC Press Release (07.10.2008) http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2008/10_october/07/forums.shtml 105 From BBC English Regions website at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/about.shtml 106 See "The new-look BBC," Economist, Aug 27th 1998, http://www.economist.com/node/162842