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BBC's mobile offering must improve to capture younger audience, BBC Trust report orders

By Angela Haggerty, Reporter

April 29, 2014 | 4 min read

The BBC must improve its mobile offering in news and current affairs, a BBC Trust report has ordered after a review found it was not doing enough to reach a younger audience through mobile devices.

Report: The BBC Trust reviewed the BBC's current affairs output

A review of the broadcaster’s news and current affairs output found that BBC News Online was the “biggest product” of its online services and mobile had driven significant growth in recent years. Desktop now accounts for less than half of all browsers accessing BBC News Online, the report said, while mobile and tablet now account for around half of browser visits.

However, the Trust said it was “surprised” to find mobile was underdeveloped in services aimed at a younger audience.

“We have been surprised that two parts of BBC News that have been historically successful at reaching young audiences through innovative methods using tradition media – Newsbeat on Radio 1 and 60 Seconds on BBC Three – have very underdeveloped online and mobile offerings,” the report stated.

“There is a clear opportunity for the BBC to develop its online and mobile provision for young people much further (whether through these existing brands or something new), both editorially and through presentation.

“We found that although the BBC’s mobile news is widely appreciated for its accessibility and navigation, more ‘advanced’ users (often younger audience) tend to view it as too restrictive, lacking in depth and not ‘explorable’ enough. Allowing greater personalisation of content was also a functionality suggested by parts of the audience we talked to.”

The Trust concluded that the BBC must do more to ensure its online news provision can “keep pace with audience expectations” by improving mobile services, making better use of audio/video content and utilising social media.

The Trust also requested action from the BBC to prevent it falling behind rivals like Channel 4 in the eyes of viewers.

The review acknowledged that Channel 4 was considered to be ahead of the BBC in terms of investigative journalism and the Trust said the wording of the BBC service licence will be altered to ensure the broadcaster maintains the “volume and ambition” of its current affairs output.

The report stated: “For those audiences who consider the quality of investigative journalism as an important factor in differentiating providers, they rate Channel 4 higher than the BBC. We also found a relatively low audience awareness of much of the BBC’s current affairs output.”

The Trust added: “We regard it as imperative for BBC One to maintain both the volume and the ambition of its current affair programming, and we will change the wording of BBC One’s service licence to ensure the channel’s remit in this regard is clear.

“We will strengthen the BBC One service licence to ensure that its commitment to current affairs captures our expectation for the genre, as well as guaranteeing a minimum level of output each year.”

In response to the report, a statement from the BBC said: "We’re delighted the report has found audiences regard our journalism as very high quality and that they rate it as more trustworthy and better informed than any other provider. The key actions around audience consumption, diversity, current affairs and international reporting mirror areas which we have already identified as key priorities and have started taking steps to address. We’ll look at the recommended actions as part of the on-going process of developing our strategic plans."

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