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BBC RADIO 5 LIVE – INDEPENDENT CONTENT ANALYSIS REPORT – JULY 2011

Conducted by Robin Britten

Brief

I was asked by UTV Media to carry out a survey of a week’s output of BBC Radio 5 Live. The purpose
of this was to try to establish what percentage of output should be considered to be news.

Method

I listened to a complete week’s output from Monday May 9th. There were no particular news stories
demanding extra live airtime during this period. There were no one-off sport events demanding live
coverage and abnormal airtime, with perhaps one slight exception. * The NHS reform debate was
beginning to gain heat. The Premier League was coming to a climax. The world awaited the outcome
of the Eurovision Song Contest.

So what definition of news did I bring to my listening?

It is a truism that what constitutes news can be very different things to very different people. But
whether the subject is Cheryl Cole or the Greek debt crisis I regard news as this: information about
something that has happened, is happening, or is about to happen. I counted output as news if it
was also discussion, analysis, debate, and audience interactivity about news.

Even within this broad definition of news there obviously can, and always will be, subjective
argument.

The BBC presents a definition of a news programme, but surprisingly not what constitutes news
within it.

Most first year university students of journalism quite quickly get to grips with basic definitions of
news. I think it is extraordinary that the world’s largest news gatherer cannot – or perhaps will not –
come up with the definition against which it judges the actual output of “BBC Radio’s home of
continuous news and live sports coverage”.

In this exercise I listened in detail to the actual content of all 5 Live programmes, whether the BBC
calls them news programmes or not. I used my own definition outlined above and almost always
gave the benefit of the doubt to 5 Live. Occasionally I split the difference.

I listened to the output programme by programme. I broke down each hour of each day into three
main categories; News, Sport and Magazine/Chat. Each item is designated and timed. There is also a
category designated and timed for trails.

I worked out aggregate percentages in each category for each programme.

It is important to stress that I included all menus/openers, text/phone interactivity, banter


prompted by a news story or text, stabs/stings, weather and travel as NEWS.

I came up with two sets of figures.


The first included news material and the above in the percentages. The second included more. It also
included the sports summaries at the top and bottom of the hour as well as all trails...what I have
called the furniture.

A brief word on the Magazine/Chat category.

Included in this category are items that have no current news topicality, or are simply interviews
with celebs selected off the PR publicity circuit.

Two more points on the methodology.

1. With three programmes – Drive/Weekday Morning Reports/Weekday Sport on Five - whose


format remains unchanged throughout the weekdays, and whose make-up is very definably either
news or sport, I have taken samples and extrapolated the figures through the week.

2. The eagle-eyed might notice times when figures for the elements of deconstructed programme
when added back together come to more than 100%. Rather than destroy the whole basis of the
exercise they will reinforce one of the points I think the exercise proves; that the distinction
between news and chat is in some programmes is becoming rather/very blurred.

I mentioned one exception to a normal news week. Saturday was FA Cup Final day. This skewed the
output on Saturday Breakfast. I made a judgement to give the benefit of the doubt largely to news in
the blanket preview coverage of this. However there came a point when items were so clearly from
the sport starting point, or repetitive that I switched them away from news and into sport in my
categorization.

Findings

To reiterate, I came up with two sets of figures. One included news stories (including
menus/openers, text/phone interactivity, banter prompted by a news story or text, stabs/stings,
weather and travel). The second, in addition to this, included the sports summaries at the top and
bottom of the hour as well as all the trails.

So there are two figures each for;

1. The percentage of news in each hour of the day, across the week.
2. The percentage of news per day of the week.
3. The percentage of news throughout the whole week.

The final figure first.

I estimate the percentage of news in the total output of BBC Radio 5 Live in the week I looked at is
… 50.1%

If you include all the sport summaries and trails the percentage of news in the total output of BBC
Radio 5 Live is …. 58.9%
The second set of figures next.

The percentage of news on weekdays ranged (by the first means of estimation) between 54.7% and
58.4% and by the second between 58.6% and 67.5%. At weekend the figures were not surprisingly
considerably lower. On Saturday and Sunday, 30% and 39%, by the first reckoning and by the second
39% to 48%.

The detailed figures for the hour parts through the week are set out in the attached Final Figures
Document.

Observations

Let me offer some observations on some of the major programmes and then pull out what I think
are some general conclusions.

1. Up All Night 0100 – 0500

I can’t begin to talk about Up All Night without first shouting its praises as one of the hidden gems of
British Broadcasting. Rotten hours for the crew, always short-staffed but frequently full of genuinely,
genuinely fascinating news. They are starved of the normal daytime news resource so they go out
and plunder the world of BBC Newsgathering and a whole wide world of news.

Their lack of normal resources drives editorial resourcefulness.

For the most part their starting point is news; interesting and important stories from around the
world. So they have a weekly fixed desk of news from Mexico, or from a correspondent in East or
West Africa. We have a regular editor from the newspaper USA Today.

But even Up All Night is starting to produce fixed slots that can in no way be seen as news, however
tenuously one interprets news. A Virtual Book Club (Monday 01.30) that lasts an hour and a half;
interesting it may be … news it aint. Dr. Carl (Thursday 0300 - 0400) answers your phone calls about
science. Interesting, but not news. The list goes on; a half hour on new music, Film (phone us about
your favourite sequel Fri 0230-0400). World Music charts. (Sat - 0130) Again not news, hardly
topical. Jolly interesting, yes. But not news.

I think here we see both the start of a problem that is growing elsewhere on 5 Live and ironically at
the same time in the same programme a solution.

Spot news can be hard to come by. But news there always is. And it is certainly accessible through a
newsgathering operation as large the BBC’s. Up All Night both sets up fixed slots that are
inescapably news-based, as well as fixed slots that are by their very nature are never going to be
anything more than chat-based.

Perhaps the lesson is this: have news - backed by a clear station view of what news is - as your
starting point and as likely as not you will produce it. And it won’t come at the cost of sacrificing
some of the things that station holds dear; humour, interactivity, originality of editorial treatment.
2. Breakfast – Drive

The figures here are up where the BBC says they should be. So perhaps there should be nothing to
add.

But I think there is. It is to pick up the final point of the observations on Up All Night.

Both these programmes ooze news. That is what they are there for; that is their starting point. But
at the same time they are nimble, witty and particularly in Drive’s case, tremendously and
immediately attached to their audiences. The feedback is instantaneous, and that feedback informs
the way stories are treated, and the way interviews are conducted. Connectivity and audience
participation in no way slows the programme pace or the high news seriousness when called for.
Inter-item, and feedback-based banter do nothing to slow the news count. A recent example of this.
After a bruising exchange with Ed Balls over his VAT proposal Peter Allen cued to former England
wicket keeper Alec Stewart at the Rose Bowl for a quick update on Sri Lanka’s score; “I’ve got an Ed
Balls story for you Peter”. ….. “Hang on Alec, are you still there in Westminster Mr. Balls? What’s all
this about. … Go on Alec, what’s your story.” At which point Alec Stewart berated the shadow
chancellor wonderfully for his wicket-keeping prowess at a recent game they had both played in.
From high seriousness to high banter in a blink. Such a rapid gear change that defines 5 Live and
helps make high politics human is only possible because the starting point of the programme is
serious news intent.

Both these programmes manage banter/chat/interactivity without jeopardizing – in fact they it use
to enhance - their core purpose; presenting accessible, digestible comprehensible news.

3. Derbyshire

Again a programme that, in my view, has news stamped through its core. (The one exception is the
Monday Music Review which sits oddly in a news format.) But my figures show a predictably high
percentage of the programme as news output.

The point to mention is the high reliance on audience interaction over stories. Whether by phone or
text what the audience thinks and says is starting to fill quite a large part of the running order. The
programme clearly isn’t a single-subject phone-in. But part of the influence over the shape of the
programme has been ceded editorially to the audience. An element of uncertainty, perhaps you
could call it editorial democratisation , has built itself into the running order.

Editorially the results can be spectacular, as Ken Clarke found out when he was introduced on air to
a rape victim.

The loosening of the structure, the constant increased interaction works when it is news that is at
the heart of the conversation. I contend that this format causes huge problems in other parts of the
output where there seems far less clarity about what constitutes news.

4. Fogarty

For the first time in the daytime I started to feel parts of the output were simply chat. I also started
to notice a dramatically low story count. The sport news presenter was used more and more as a
semi-constant presence and foil to chat about the preceding item.

Let me illustrate this contention with a look at the output on Monday May 9.
In the two hours between midday and 1400 apart from the obvious news summaries and a business
slot the programme looked at only five stories; NHS reform, Twitter, changes to the way people are
charged for offences, a Rio Ferdinand stalker court case, and a claim that betting shops are too
attractive. The sole news story in the first hour was the NHS. The rest of the time was taken up with
a retrospective chat about the weekend’s sport lasting almost fifteen minutes. I don’t see how this
differs in any way from Sport on 5’s Monday Night Club. Whichever way you cut it, it is chat about
sport.

In the second hour we were invited to join Sheila’s ruminations - for more than three minutes in
total – about her surprise at seeing grown men playing Frisbee in a park. Chat.

The Sport chat was a function of one part of the new programme format which has given each day
of the week a “specialist” subject panel (sport, health, politics, consumer, Five Life (sic)).

Clearly the politics panel works around the hard news content of Prime Minister’s Questions on
Wednesday. Not surprisingly the Wednesday News content figures are by far the highest of the
week.

By Friday we have a panel called Five Life, the subject matter of which is so broad, so non-news tied
that it simply can’t be categorized as news.

The noteworthy point about this two hour slot is the increasing reliance on turning to others in the
studio to chat and fill time. Chat is beginning to take the place of news.

5. Bacon

This two hour programme has, to my mind, by far the lowest news content of the daytime output.

The reason is very simple. The spine of the programme is the celebrity guest interview. Guests
appear to be straight off the celebrity PR circuit and they are there to plug their book, their DVD,
their show, their tour, themselves. All the major guests this week were plugging their wares. It can
be very effective light entertainment. But it is not news.

The programme does cover breaking news; the David Laws apology statement, live turns in the Fifa
row. But for every hard news story there was a non-news slot. The “Help” slot on Thursday … your “I
need help” questions answered by a panel. The “Moan-in” on Wednesday … just phone and have a
moan.

There was little attempt to harden up the interviews and drag them where possible onto the day’s
news agenda. There was an attempt, with limited success, with Omad Djalili on Monday.

Only once between Monday and Thursday was there a pre-booked news based long interview;
Twitter interviews on Monday.

Fridays is all film.

Again the issue seems to be one of programme intent; what is Five Live trying to produce in this
slot? From what we hear it seems solely to be a programme full of big celebrity interviews, and the
odd news story when they have no option. One recent past editor insisted that a half hour of the
programme had to tackle in long form one of the big stories of the day: “I had the rare luxury of time
and a presenter who wanted to help explain big stories.” For this editor interviews – even off the
celeb circuit - had to have more reason and purpose than simply to plug.

6. Livesey

Many of the observations above – the tendency to chat, the move to a studio“zoo” feel, the
loosening of structure necessitating chat – come to a head here.

As with Up All Night, it is a given that this is not an easy slot to fill. It also a given that a more
whimsical and reflective style sits well at this time of the evening.

But take these examples from the week’s programmes as topics the presenter wanted listeners to
call in about. What have you borrowed and broken? (Off the back of Darlington FC dropping a cup
and breaking it). What’s your most pathetic injury? Where have you been that’s later turned up on
TV? (Tony Livesey had that day visited the Coronation Street set). Write me a blues. (Hugh Laurie has
just released a blues Album).

These subjects are hardly topical, let alone news-based. The time spent talking about them can only
be classified as chat. Again, it might be entertaining chat that makes good radio at this time of night.

But that is not the question being considered.

The sense of chat dominating this programme is exacerbated by the “zoo” feel of the studio. Anyone
with a walk-on part in the format, sport reader, news-reader, business slot presenter, all have an
immediate unstructured input into the programme. Take Tuesday May 10th. As soon as the news has
finished, everyone engages in a three minute gab-fest about where the newsreader has been at the
weekend.

There is news based discussion. There are listeners’ calls on and about assisted dying off the back of
the TV programme about assisted dying. This time has, of course, been tabulated as news. But by
far the majority of subjects listeners are encouraged to call about are hardly even tenuously related
to the current news agenda, let alone directly related.

Interestingly, the news figures for the weekend programmes are markedly higher. A different
presenter and a different angle of approach to discussion topics seemed to pertain.

It is also worth noting that the Sunday morning programme featuring Tony Livesey was
unequivocally news based. So it is not a question of a hugely engaging presenter only being able to
hack whimsy!
Conclusions

A few broad points first.

1. There is a desperate need for clearer definition of what comprises news for 5 Live.

I simply cannot understand why the BBC is not more specific about what it regards as news in the
context of Five Live. It seems to want to skirt around what, after all, is a relatively simple issue.

Simple, but to their staff’s clarity of purpose and the BBC’s monitoring of the station’s achievements,
central.

2. If the BBC won’t define news, can production teams be clear about what they are producing?

I have spoken to senior former colleagues at editor level, and above. None recall any exercises in
monitoring news output levels or attempts to define news.

What is the starting point of the production teams? The programmes that seem to have a view of
themselves that they are first and foremost news programmes deliver news.

I find it hard to imagine that the Bacon team can sit down and say with hand on heart that they are a
programme that discusses the news. Livesey can hardly call itself late night discussion about the
news. It could call itself lively late night chat and topical debate. Similarly Bacon would be spot on
with – the home of big celebrity interviews and live news when/if it happens.

There seems to be a general shyness, almost a self-serving reluctance, to clearly define aims and
purpose.

3. There is a growing confusion between topicality and news.

The controller of the station hints, in a Radio 4 Feedback interview, that mere topicality is an
acceptable threshold for a definition of news. I contend that it is not.

The weather is frequently topical; a radio station broadcasting nothing but discussion and
information about the weather would be derided as a news station. Does Five Live recognize and/or
make a distinction?

It needs to.

Again we are back to our starting point; no BBC definition for Five Live of what constitutes news.

We need one badly.

4. There is a growing blurring of distinction between informed discussion or debate, and chat. And
this blurring is being built into programme formats.

News deals in fact. That is the starting point. Worthwhile news-based discussion involves at its core
informed and informing participants.
It may sound uncomfortably lofty, but sponsoring direct conversation and interaction between the
audience and decision makers is a crowning glory of Five Live. It has genuinely changed and
enhanced British civic society.

It can at times be a real agent for debate and change.

However, the audience feedback and interaction has now been so built into much looser
programme formats that when it does not come it leaves a vacuum. Largely repetitive and often
uninformed chat too often fills that vacuum.

A refusal to admit this development is behind Five Live’s tacit confusion of topicality with news and
almost wilful reluctance to define what it regards as news.

More than anything 5 Live needs a clear and unambiguous definition of what the BBC considers to
be news and, based on my analysis, I am proposing the following:

News is:

Fresh information on something that has happened, is happening (breaking news), or is about to
happen that is of concern, relevance or interest to the 5 Live audience.

News can be reporter-mediated information, informed discussion and debate, or mediated audience
interaction about this.

But for content on 5 Live to be defined as news, whether it comes from the lighter entertainment
end of the spectrum or the more serious realm of public or international affairs, it should be
presented with the overriding intention of bringing forward fresh information and understanding; it
should aim to analyse, simplify, and engage the listener with the complicated, make the obscure
clearer and disentangle hype and spin from core fact.

To be classed as news, discussion and audience interactivity should have a current news impetus, a
clear intent to add information and a declared aim and purpose; it should not be aimless, repetitious
and unrelated to the current news agenda.

Mere conversation about the topical - offering no fresh fact, analysis or interpretation - is not news.

To be classed as a 5 Live news programme, around three quarters of an individual programme’s


output should be dedicated to news content (unless the programme has a separate stated aim and a
corresponding percentage of news content).

About the author: Robin Britten was one of the founding editors of Radio 5 Live. He edited a range of
programmes on the station before working as the station News Editor responsible for bringing 5 Live distinctive
news coverage from around the UK and the world. Before joining 5 Live Robin was deputy editor of the World
at One on Radio 4, he worked as an output editor in the Radio Newsroom, and was North America producer for
BBC News. Before joining the BBC he was a newspaper reporter for, amongst others, the Birmingham Post and
Mail. Since leaving the BBC Robin has trained in radio stations around the world, and had a spell as Principal
Lecturer in Journalism at the University of Bedfordshire. He is currently a visiting lecturer in broadcast
journalism at the University of Staffordshire.

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