The BBC is trumpeting its recent surge in 24-hour news, according to the Guardian:
The BBC head of television news, Peter Horrocks, said: “We are maintaining our traditional values of accuracy and authority, with an emphasis on original journalism and vivid story-telling.
“Audiences might have reason to question our competitors’ commitment to news. Sky News is no longer valuable on cable and BSkyB want to take it off Freeview…for many audiences ‘the news’ now simply means BBC News.”
Horrocks is entitled to private satisfaction, but he has not just a managerial but a political job, and in politics success like failure, always comes at a cost.
If there were a market impact assessment today on introducing a 24-hour news service that would demolish one attempt at competition (ITV News Channel) and undermine the business model of another, News 24 would not exist.
News channels are profitable in the United States – and there are MSNBC, Fox News and CNN to prove it. They are not profitable in the UK, and if James Murdoch should decide to shut Sky News down, or limit its carriage, we are left with just the BBC to provide us with 24-hour news. Perhaps that’s not the end of the world, but it is the end of diversity. And diversity – pace the different ‘flavours’ of BBC News – doesn’t just mean within the death hug of the Corporation.
When national news breaks we want more than one source directing us to the truth. Remember 7/7? Audiences may not want to forget News 24’s response that day…
2 responses to “Diversity: the price of success in TV news”
This is a huge problem for Britain. A free nation needs more choices for who determines the national conversation than one government-controlled (yes, they select its Board) source. This is barely better than what the USSR had with Pravda, and is not worthy of the world’s cradle of freedom. Thankfully, there is still the Internet, but I sure wish someone would get off their bum and fight to give our cousins on the other side of the Pond some good Yankee competition (Steve Boriss, The Future of News)
And lest we forget, diversity also leans towards plurality of different voices/opinions. That’s in make-up of staff, non-diary issues, and on air pundits.
Despite what the news industry sees as its “congratulatory best efforts”, there are still fault lines reflecting the aforementioned in the newsroom.
No doubt the customary: “we must do better; we will do better”, will be made at BECTU’s Diversity-driven program “Move on Up”.